bureaucrats, mate. They’re always looking for scalps, you know? They have to ping someone with a huge fine or close down a pub to justify their junkets.’
Allpress steered Tugga towards the door. ‘Look mate, give me your car keys. I’ll shift your ute around the back and out of sight of the inspectors. It’s not going to rain, so you can crash out in the back until morning. You’ll be in Apollo Bay for breakfast, no problems.’
Tugga grunted and left. Five minutes later Allpress returned to find patrons eager for refills, happy that a messy showdown had been averted. God, the crap I deal with to keep the peace.
One of the locals called out to Allpress as he slipped behind the counter to help his staff. ‘Well done, Davy. He’s a big bastard all right but you know we had your back if he got out of hand, don’t you?’
‘Yeah, right,’ Allpress muttered as he poured a pot of beer. He knew the ringside supporter and panicked mob would have trampled him if Tugga had taken the belligerence option.
In the carpark, Tugga sat in the tray of his ute with a travel rug wrapped around his shoulders. It smelled of sawdust and beer. He’d spilled his last roadie while rolling a cigarette. He managed to save half the VB stubby, but that disappeared in two swallows. He threw the bottle into the darkness and sniggered when it shattered. ‘Fuck you, Davy!’
Tugga had no idea if the bottle hit a car or a tree as Allpress had backed his ute into a corner near the cricket practice net. He finished the cigarette and considered staying awake until the hotel inspectors arrived.
‘I’ll fucking teach them not to pick on a Kiwi.’
He slithered onto his back and wrapped the blanket tighter as he searched the sky for The Southern Cross. He found the constellation, but couldn’t retain his focus. A minute later he was asleep.
Tugga’s snoring drifted across the car park. The only person who could hear was in the cab of a battered Ford ute parked 20 metres away. The observer was slouched behind the steering wheel, a New York baseball cap pulled low. It wasn’t important to keep Tugga in view, it would be obvious when he awoke. The dry horrors or early morning chill were bound to wake sleeping beauty in a few hours. If Tugga was true to form, he would piss against a car and resume his journey. The observer was relieved Tugga didn’t cause trouble in the pub. It would have ruined carefully laid plans.
Chapter 2
The Melbourne television office for the fourth-highest rating news service – they were still beating the ABC and SBS – was all but empty by 1.30 on Saturday afternoon, which was usually a good sign. It meant the four reporters and camera operators on duty were gainfully employed on stories for the six o’clock bulletin, and that satisfied the weekend chief of staff, Ciaran O’Malley. He might at least keep his job for another week.
O’Malley was born in Ireland but showed few traces of his origins. He’d arrived as a toddler almost 40 years before. He was waiting for the weekend producer to return with their standard Saturday lunch: two meat pies each and a brace of caramel slices to top it off. He would atone for the heart disease risk by consuming lunch with a healthy green tea and a twist of lemon. A balanced diet in O’Malley’s view, even if half the tea was never consumed.
The absence of annoying phone calls from reporters, camera crews or PR companies seeking publicity for their clients gave him a few minutes to trawl through online news sources to see if he had missed anything important. A grimace suggestive of a heart attack contorted his 43-year-old features when he spotted the lead story on the most popular news site, then a prolonged expletive bounced off the four monitors that streamed his opposition news channels.
‘Fuck!’
Fatal Coast Road Plunge
Police believe alcohol was a factor in a car accident on the Great Ocean Road near Lorne this morning, which led to the death of the driver, a 54-year-old Geelong resident.
The utility was found upside down on rocks below a parking bay between Eastern View and the resort town. Police believe Kevin Tancred might have fallen asleep. They suspect the accident happened between 2am and 8.30am when the vehicle was found by a rock-walking group.
The Geelong landscaper was refused service at an Aireys Inlet pub last night after arriving intoxicated. The manager persuaded Tancred to spend the night in his utility beside the pub after surrendering his keys.
Police suspect Tancred, who owned a holiday home at Apollo Bay, had a spare key in the vehicle. It’s believed Tancred, known as Tugga, attempted to drive home when he awoke during the night.
O’Malley ignored the rest of the story, the guts of it was in the first two paragraphs: fatal plunge off a famous tourist route, publican acting the Good Samaritan and the stupidity of drunk drivers. This was bread and butter material for a commercial television news service and he had no resources to deal with it.
‘Fucking stupid arsehole,’ O’Malley screamed at a picture of Tugga that accompanied the story. The anger wasn’t frustration for a senseless accident, more a case of a missed story opportunity.
‘You’re an absolute tugger all right. Couldn’t have done a high dive from somewhere more convenient? You wanker, how am I going to get a camera and reporter to Lorne and back before the news?’
Journalistic sympathies didn’t extend far for those who juggled weekend news-gathering duties on limited budgets. Lower ratings meant fewer bodies to do the work. O’Malley’s crews were committed for at least another hour or two, and the station’s only news helicopter was 220 kms away at Echuca, on the Murray River. There was more chance of Hawthorn tumbling to the AFL wooden spoon next year than of O’Malley getting that chopper to Lorne in time for the news. It was career suicide to hire another chopper and send a stringer camera operator. The station, especially the news and current affairs departments, was on a cost clampdown. Every extra expense above $500 had to be approved by The Hatchet, as the financial controller Andrew Hackett was commonly known. He made the Federal Treasurer look like a philanthropist. It was at least a four-hour return trip from Melbourne by car, and that didn’t factor in filming time at the scene and chasing interviews. The mobile broadcast truck wasn’t an option either; it was in the garage to replace a blown head gasket.
O’Malley was still cursing Tugga Tancred when the news producer, Alan Deveraux, entered the room. Deveraux casually slung a plastic bag onto O’Malley’s desk. ‘What’s happened?’ His question unwittingly initiated a new tirade.
O’Malley took a deep breath. ‘Some drunken landscaper has planted himself all over rocks beneath the Great Ocean Road near Lorne. A local publican tried to stop him from driving, but the pisshead managed to get another set of keys and tear off into the night. Naturally the tosser, who is aptly named Tugga, zigged when he should have zagged and did a Thelma and Louise off the road into the surf below. The only reason he wasn’t fish bait is that his ute was so pancaked by the rocks they couldn’t squeeze inside to nibble him.’
Deveraux reached into the food bag to retrieve a pie. He took a big bite. ‘So, a good story for us, given we’re post-footy season and we don’t have rights to broadcast the Melbourne Cup on Tuesday?’
O’Malley nodded as he retrieved his own pie and scrabbled around on the desk looking for a sachet of tomato sauce. Deveraux was a bite ahead.
‘I gather you don’t have a camera, reporter or chopper within range to get to Lorne in time
