O
ut on the harbour, a dark blue sky arched in a massive curve over the bridge. A strong easterly wind had whipped the water into white tops and brought some relief from the heat. Ferries dipped in the swell. The sails of the Opera House gleamed like cracked eggshells in the late sun. Over Port Jackson, the seagulls screamed and shat on the old prison, Pinchgut, a hard nub of angular sandstone in the water. The sky was alive with the bright clarity of the Australian light; light cut with the transparency of pure glass, hard as ineffaceable emotion and with just as much edge.
On the Quay, crowds of tourists watched the buskers against the backdrop of the ferry wharves. Grace, dressed in ultramarine blue, her dark hair curled on her bare shoulders, her stilettos clicking on the steps, made her way up to the entrance of the Museum of Contemporary Art. At the door, her name was checked and found to be acceptable. With a smile, the penguin-suited doorman ushered her in. ‘Nice to see you here,’ he said in his smoothly professional tones.
Inside, lights illuminated the terrazzo floor and the pale green and white marble pillars of the
function room. A large area had been taken up by an array of seating facing a podium. An ornately worked acronym of the corporation’s name, LPS, was displayed on a large screen, dominating both the podium and the room. Some people were already seated, others crowded around the buffet. The murmur of voices was loud. A string quartet played light classical; waiters offered trays of drinks and finger food.
The party from LPS stood waiting to welcome people as they arrived. Elena Calvo, immaculately dressed and smiling, handed out glossy named and numbered prospectuses. Beside her was Senator Edwards in black tie, his face pale, shaking hands mechanically. A third man was with them, tall in a white suit with a ruined, almost shocking face. At the sight of him, Grace stopped herself from drawing too sharp a breath. What kind of injuries would have caused that scarring? Others were less circumspect in hiding their reactions. When corporations put themselves on public display, almost everything was sanitised. On perhaps her most important night, Elena Calvo’s welcoming committee included a man whose face would unsettle if not shock almost everyone he greeted.
Behind all three were two well-built men whom Grace guessed were bodyguards and, also in white, Sam Jonas. She saw Grace walking towards the group and smiled in a strange way.
‘Yes, Grace Riordan.’ Elena straightened a little when Grace appeared in front of her. ‘Commander Harrigan’s companion. We’re pleased to have you here. Is it true you’re in the same line of work?’
‘Perhaps not any more. I am a trained police officer but I work in another line of business now.’
‘Did you do it for the excitement?’
‘No, it was to see if I could make a difference.’
‘That’s my motivation,’ Elena said. ‘I want to make a difference. Let me introduce you to my chief scientist, Dr Daniel Brinsmead. He is the head of our signature project, which is into burns research. He gave Commander Harrigan a tour of his project this morning.’
‘Pleased to meet you,’ Grace said, shaking hands while at the same noticing the fingerless left hand, the bulk of medical dressings beneath Dr Brinsmead’s clothes. He was taller than her by a head. Once he must have been a good-looking man, fit and strong. Seen so close, the texture of his skin was like some reworked foreign material, almost unnatural. She fought the urge to look away.
‘Are you pleased to meet me?’ he replied.
‘Yes.’
‘I’ll take you at your word. Not everybody is, as I’ve noticed tonight. Yes, I met Harrigan out at Campbelltown today. Have you spoken to him since?’
‘No,’ Grace said, feeling it.
‘So he won’t have had the chance to tell you what happened. You can see from my face why my project is to do with burns,’ Brinsmead said. ‘I’m speaking later on tonight. That’s why I’m here at the door. I want everyone to see me now instead of being shocked when I step out into the light.’
‘As soon as people hear what you have to say, I’m sure you’ll have their complete interest. They won’t be thinking about anything else.’
‘I told Daniel that same thing myself,’ Elena said. ‘Grace, this is Senator Edwards. Grace Riordan. She’s standing in for Commander Harrigan.’
‘I’m pleased to meet you. You look very charming.’
The senator’s eyes were bloodshot, his hands trembling slightly. There was a scent of mouthwash about him. Grace, who had once started drinking as soon as she woke up in the morning, recognised the symptoms. The first thing you did was look for ways to hide your breath.
‘Harrigan’s working, is he?’ the senator said.
‘Yes, he has to be somewhere else.’
‘He must trust you if he’s asked you to stand in for him.’
‘I hope so.’
‘I’m sure he does,’ Elena interrupted. ‘Grace, this is one of my security people, Sam Jonas. I’ve asked her to look after you tonight. If there’s anything you want, just ask her for it. We’ll talk to you later.’
Grace smiled and walked away. Sam followed. Grace stepped to the side, out of the way of the moving crowd where she could talk to Sam with some small privacy.
‘Where would you like to sit?’ Sam asked with a grin. ‘You can consider me your personal servant. Do you want a glass of champagne? It’s good quality.’
‘No, thanks,’ Grace said. ‘I can find my own seat. You don’t have to look after me. You can tell Dr Calvo I asked you not to bother.’
‘We can still talk to each other. You and I are in the same business.’
‘Are we?’
‘Aren’t you in the security game one way or another? You used to be a police officer.’
‘Not any more.’
‘Are you telling me you left all that behind just like that? From what I read in the newspapers, you were handy enough to walk away from a very nasty situation at Jerry Freeman’s house the other day.
They left your name out of the press release but you must have been there.’
‘That was mainly down to him,’ Grace said.
‘It didn’t read that way in the papers. He’s the one who took three bullets, and one intrepid journalist reported there was a fourth shot through the door. Was that aimed at you? But you managed to get the door shut just in time. Now that’s dancing with death.’
‘Why do you want to know?’
‘I told you. It’s my job to keep an eye on things for Elena.’
‘Why were you there?’
Sam smiled. ‘To quote you, if you won’t answer my question, I’m not going to answer yours.’
‘You knew what was going to happen. You walked away and left me and him to get shot.’
‘No. I warned you loud and clear if you were listening. After that, it was up to you to look after yourself.’
‘Did you know who was going to be there?’ Grace asked sharply. ‘Or why they’d be coming after Freeman?’
‘Why should I know any of those things? A man like Freeman must have had plenty of people who wanted to get their own back on him, even if it was at the last minute.’
‘You didn’t care,’ Grace said. ‘It didn’t matter to you that two people might end up dead.’
‘Am I supposed to care? Why? No one else does.’
‘Maybe I care if I get shot,’ Grace said, turning to walk away.
‘You’re standing in for Harrigan,’ Sam said. ‘That means you’re here to observe and report back. He thinks you can do that for him usefully. So whatever you say, I’m very sure we’re in the same business.
Which is something I wanted to ask you. Is it good or bad having a lover in the same line of work?’
Grace turned back. Sam was watching her with a distant look, one that reduced her to a cipher.
‘Why ask me?’
‘I just wondered what you think. Do you go to bed at night worrying what’s happened to Harrigan? Does he wonder what’s happened to you? Do you gnaw at your fingernails hoping you’ll both be okay?’
‘Why are you trying to be offensive? You talk to people this way for fun?’
‘I’m just interested in you. There’s a saying that love is as strong as death. Do you think it is?’
‘Do you?’
‘I do as it happens, but I’m more interested right now in what you think. Maybe you’ll get to find out if it’s true.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ Grace asked.
‘Nothing in particular. If you don’t want me to look after you, better take a seat. There’s a good turnout.’
‘Who’s here?’
‘Financial institutions, research institutes, university bigwigs, politicians, punters, thieves, rip-off merchants. And you. The innocent bystander.’
‘You are just so in your face,’ Grace heard herself saying. ‘You just hit people with it, don’t you? Does anything frighten you? Keep you in line?’
‘No,’ Sam said with a broad smile. ‘I can say with complete honesty that I’m not frightened of anything.’
‘You just do and say what you want.’
‘Try reaching the point where you can, Grace. It’s very liberating.’
Grace took a seat, glancing back in time to see
Sam rejoin Elena’s entourage. Sam spoke a few words to Elena who nodded. Scarcely a debrief. Presumably if Sam was going to report their conversation to her boss, they would go somewhere more private.
Grace looked around at the crowd. Among an otherwise staid group, she saw those people that anyone who lived and worked in this city knew about: dealers in influence and connection. Entrepreneurs who blurred the line between the business and criminal worlds but could still open doors in the big end of town or the government. Shock jocks who spruiked these occasions on air the way they might bet on an untried filly at the track, for a flutter. The women accompanying these men were mostly young, they glittered in the light. Those who were older had held on to the same style of dress, their clothes revealing bodies carrying a little too much age, a cumulative weight hidden by tans and dyed hair. Stuart Morrissey was sitting in the middle rows, one of these old-young blonde women with him.
The room was darkening, a spotlight centring on the podium. In the light, Elena took her seat with half a dozen other people, including Edwards and Daniel Brinsmead.
‘Will you please make welcome Senator Allan Edwards,’ said an invisible announcer, ‘the federal Minister for Science and Technology.’
There was applause. As he stepped up to the microphone, the minister’s face was pale although composed.
‘Well, ladies and gentlemen, as the song goes, tonight is no ordinary night. Tonight we are launching a vision I believe in so strongly that nothing could prevent me from being here. I come in
the hope that I may take something positive out of the darkness that has surrounded my life lately.’ A more intense silence greeted this statement. The awareness of recent, violent death seemed tangible in the atmosphere. ‘I urge you to have the same belief, to help us build life out of death, hope out of despair. Let me introduce Dr Elena Calvo, the CEO of Life Patent Strategies International and one of the most impressive people I have ever met. Please make her most welcome.’
He stepped back. The audience applauded. Resplendent in the light, Elena stood up and began to speak.
‘Thank you, Senator Edwards. Before anything else, I want to say that without Senator Edwards’ foresight and dedication, tonight would not have been possible. I will always be deeply grateful for his support. Please, if we could show our appreciation.’
The applause was generous. Edwards nodded his thanks but appeared ill at ease, his face tense with exhaustion.
‘Thank you too, ladies and gentlemen, for being here tonight. To sum up our business enterprise, we open the doors to vast possibility. Tonight we offer you the opportunity to be a part of that enterprise.’
The LPS logo on the screen had spun in on itself while she spoke. In its place, a double helix appeared in closeup, coiling across the screen: a thickish, ribbed, twisted rope made up of a darker red exterior enclosing a paler interior, its parts meshed together like teeth in a zipper.
‘This is a single strand of DNA,’ Elena continued. ‘What you see magnified on this screen behind me is in reality only fifty-trillionths of an inch wide. This very narrow thread supports the varieties of life. At Life Patent Strategies, we experiment with this
thread, we mine its unlimited potential. Genes are our latest industrial raw material, the most inexhaustible, self-generating resource humans have ever tapped into. If you own the knowledge of what this tiny strand can do, then you own the commercial power to exploit its vast capacities. With the right expertise, you can trade in its infinite possibilities across the world’s marketplaces.
‘We own the knowledge. We have the expertise. We offer you the chance to be a part of this new world. To make your investment in a resource that has unending potential. Tonight, at this very moment, I am going to demonstrate exactly the kind of injury that our research will one day cure. I ask you to remain seated while I invite to the microphone someone who is a very dear friend of mine. Please do not be startled by his appearance. Let me introduce Dr Daniel Brinsmead, the head of our signature research project into the regeneration of the human body following major burns.’
Like the ghost at the feast, Daniel Brinsmead stepped forward. His ruined face stood out as a strange mask, both illuminated and shaded by the fall of the light, staring back at the crowd. There was a stir throughout the audience.
‘Good evening,’ he said, a disembodied voice through the microphone. ‘For those of you who haven’t seen me before, don’t be disturbed by how I look. Let me tell you where I fit in here. I’m a geneticist. You can find my résumé on the website or in your prospectus. Tonight I’m representing myself not only as the researcher but as the subject. The work that LPS does is contentious. Most biotechnology is contentious. But as a scientist, I have no doubt whatsoever that in the field of biotechnology, there are enormously positive gains to be made. Cures for
crippling and painful diseases. Food crops that rely on less environmentally destructive methods of farming, with yields that promise independence for their farmers. But will we do this? Will we enhance life or produce wastelands? Or will the sources of life become something owned only by a very few people for their commercial benefit alone? Out of the source of life, will we create death?’