about the dangers of fishing on wet rocks at Muriwai. They say fishers should wear life jackets, never turn their backs on the sea and that it’s safer to cut a snagged line than attempt to free it.
The Harvey family were shocked by the tragedy. A family spokesman said Harvey had fished at Muriwai for 25 years and that he was safety conscious. ‘He always wore a life jacket, even in calm conditions, and made sure his companions did as well,’ the spokesman said.
Hackett couldn’t comprehend such rotten luck: two mates dead within two months of each other. He knew that Tugga and Drew had grown up together in the North Island, and now both had died in accidents involving the ocean.
Different coastlines in different countries but freakily similar.
Given Tugga had moved to Australia nearly three decades ago, Hackett wondered how much contact he and Drew had over the closing years of their lives. Tugga seemed to have been a confirmed bachelor and Drew was a family man, so there probably weren’t too many boys’ reunion weekends. Tugga, Drew and Gerry were once a tight unit and now two of them were dead.
Hackett recalled Helen telling him one day, in Greece or Turkey or somewhere else that was humid, that she’d first met them when they moved from Palmerston North to work the forests around Rotorua. They liked the pub where she worked and they were big drinkers – at least four or five nights a week – and had been in a few scraps. However, Helen said, they always looked after her if there was any trouble. She had shagged them all at different times but by late 1983, when she took off for Sydney, they were more like brothers.
Hackett yawned as he pondered the fickle nature of life. The discovery of Tugga’s death unsettled him, yet Drew’s demise, while a surprise, didn’t quite have the same impact. Probably because he remembered that Drew seemed to tolerate Hackett as part of Tugga’s Mob, knowing it was only for the tour, not a genuine friendship.
Hackett wondered whether to start a new search for Helen Franks and Gerry Daly. He looked at the clock on the computer screen and decided at 10.29pm it might be wiser to call it a night. His first meeting in the morning was an early bird with the station manager. It was a key discussion about the state of the war chest and their strategy to snaffle a share of the AFL television rights. Those matters were best planned with few inquisitive staff around. Hackett knew, even after the staff cuts, you didn’t find too many people around the office at 7am on Monday mornings.
Hackett shut down his computer and made a mental note to allocate time for another Google search on Monday night. He stood and stretched, then laughed quietly as a macabre thought entered his head: Two of Tugga’s Mob are dead – I don’t want to find a third this weekend.
Chapter 7
Monday morning found Curly Rogers choosing public transport instead of the usual 40-minute walk to work from his home in Middle Park. The same idea occurred to other foot-sloggers in the neighbourhood and, consequently, the tram was packed. They hadn’t been able to squeeze another body aboard since Albert Street, outside the old South Melbourne football ground. Curly, wedged between three suits and a student who refused to remove his bulky daypack, could still count his blessings. They were at least moving forward while the car drivers, stalled in a Clarendon Street jam, should have turned off their engines and saved the planet.
Like most on the tram, Curly was tuned out from the awkward commuter silence. He was plugged in to his iPod instead and to the sounds of vintage Santana. It was 7.55am and he was unaware that Hackett’s first meeting of the day was winding up in a ghost station. Curly’s thoughts hadn’t made the transition from weekend mode to work yet; he was contemplating the crayfish salad he shared with Janine at Erskine Falls on Sunday afternoon. It was a rare treat.
He had gilded the lily with the Chief of Staff about his wife leaving him stranded on the Great Ocean Road on Saturday. Curly had been married to Janine for 17 years and knew she understood the irregular demands of his job. She was a pragmatic woman. Curly was returning from the rock shelf where Tugga died when Janine texted him an update. The drama on the coast road attracted so many sightseers there weren’t any car parks available before Lorne. Janine wisely drove to the accommodation that overlooked the surf beach and put the wine, beer and nibbles in the fridge. She offered to return when he finished the story. Curly read between the lines – Janine wanted him to find his own way into town. It was easy enough for a gabby journalist to scrounge a ride and Curly arrived to find Janine halfway through the first bottle of sauvignon blanc. He grabbed a chilled Crown Lager from the fridge and texted O’Malley about having to appease his ‘grumpy’ wife. Curly knew he would never get paid for the extra duties, but he was going to guilt-trip O’Malley into buying more than a couple of beers after. Curly knew he’d take the money out of petty cash anyway and hope The Hatchet didn’t find out.
Santana had finished playing by the time Curly exited the tram at Park Street, so his thoughts drifted towards work. He had four stories lined up for the week, although the first wasn’t due on air until Tuesday night. High productivity was another vital skill in broadcast journalism these days; get your stories on the television or get shown the door. His gut instinct told him there was more to the Tugga Tancred cliff-diving story, but he doubted he would get the luxury of time to investigate it.
Curly reached the television station and steadily weaved through a rabbit warren of hallways and adjoining buildings towards the current affairs office. It was a long way from the management domain, which was both good and bad. Journalists never like being close to bean counters, but out of sight means out of mind for those who paid the wage bills. We keep getting time sheets from the south corner of the complex. Who lives down there?
The studios and facilities were built to cope with Australia’s first Olympic Games broadcast in 1956. No one had any idea what was required apart from walls, roofs, cameras and miles of electronic cables and other technical stuff. The original network expanded over several city blocks in the following decades before selling the premises and moving to bespoke facilities in Docklands. Curly’s employers hadn’t seen any need to mess with history. Why spend money upgrading studios, cameras, presentation suites, recording booths or news rooms? They were in the business of making money, not spending it. It was a miracle management agreed to dump the typewriters and install computers.
Curly was still 20 metres away from the office when he picked up the first sounds of battle – Jo. Another female voice – Kim. Then a male voice, the tone indicating he was under siege – Mac.
Bugger. Give up mate and just pay.
Curly slipped into the office and headed straight for his desk, hoping to fire up his terminal and take refuge from the combatants. The man under fire was David McKenzie, Melbourne Spotlight’s program producer, who was better known throughout media circles as Mac. Even his grandmother called him Mac. She could never remember his home address, so her Christmas card would be posted to Mac, care of whatever channel she thought was employing him. It sometimes took a longer trek, but everyone in Melbourne television newsrooms knew Mac and the card always ended up in pride of place on his office desk, usually with a few extra good wishes or ribald comments penned on granny’s envelope.
That industry respect wasn’t helping Mac at that moment as he was bracketed at the main production desk. The protagonists were Jo Trescowthick, production assistant and gofer extraordinaire, and Kim Prescott, the office researcher who was desperate to become a reporter. A showdown with the program producer at 8.23am on a Monday probably wasn’t going to help that career path. But there were principles at stake: the coffee and biscuit kitty had been raided, again.
It was an odd sight, Curly had to admit. Jo would make a hobbit look tall. Kim towered over her colleague by 20cm, but even she had to look up at Mac who was a tad under two metres. Yet his wavy red mane atop
