Dirty Fracking Business

  ‘He’s Senior Constable Gibson to you kid, and you can address me as Constable Carlisle.’

  ‘It’s all right, Sandi. Billy and I go back a long way. I was his rugby coach for six years. So what is it you want to see me about, Billy?’

  ‘She’s hot and feisty too.’

  ‘Billy!’

  ‘Sorry Josh. Well I wus up here and saw the bloody thing blow sky high.’

  ‘What were you doing up here?’

  ‘We wus parking. Me and Kazza come up here for a bitta privacy … if ya know what I mean.’

  ‘So you saw it too, Karen?’

  ‘Nah, she didn’t. Ya see I was at the back of the car having a snake’s hiss and next thing ya know the ground shakes and there’s flames exploding everywhere. Jeez, I nearly peed all over me new shoes.’

  ‘Do you know how it started?’

  ‘Dunno, but there wus one strange thing.’

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘Well, the explosion lit up the hill like it wus daylight and I saw this big black wolf against the flames. He wus in full flight.’

  ‘There are no wolves in Australia. Are you sure it wasn’t a dingo or a collie?’

  ‘It wus a wolf all right.’

  ‘It was a wolf,’ Karen said. ‘As soon as Billy got back in the car he told me about it. Said it was as black as death.’

  ‘Did you see anything else, Billy?’

  ‘Nothing, only the wolf.’

  ‘Let’s have a look at where you were parked.’

  ‘Sure, me car’s just down the hill a bit. Follow me.’

  A few minutes later they were next to Billy’s bright yellow Ford which had dual chrome exhausts and a lowered suspension. Josh looked up the hill. The flame lit up the area around the well and it would be easy to see a large dog. ‘Billy, why don’t you take Karen home before her parents start phoning us? You can come down to the station tomorrow and make a statement.’

  A CEGL truck with flashing orange lights pulled up to the jeers of the crowd. Four maintenance men got out. Someone shouted, ‘Where have you been?’ and someone else, ‘Are you happy with yourselves now, you mongrels?’

  ‘How long before you get it under control?’ Sandi asked the driver.

  ‘I’ve got no idea, but we’ll secure the site tonight and it won’t be left unmanned until we’ve plugged it.’

  Steve knew what had happened and wondered whether Josh Gibson had twigged. Josh wasn’t all that sharp but there was only one dog in the valley that could be mistaken for a wolf. He drove slowly back to town, wondering what he should do, knowing that if he said anything there were those in the town who would blackball him and the Chronicle. How could Paxton have been so stupid and how had he expected to get away with it? Steve was convinced that when the truth came out, as it surely would, it would prove there was nothing wrong with the gas well and that Paxton had blown it to pieces. The government supported coal seam gas and its sympathy lay with CEGL, courtesy of the future royalty revenues it was salivating over. If it came out that the well had been sabotaged, government support would intensify and the pollies would have an excuse to bury the good work done by the Fisher Valley Protective Alliance.

  Josh Gibson took a few minutes to decipher what Billy had said about seeing a big black wolf, before putting two and two together and relating his suspicions to Sandi. This had been her most exciting policing day and she did not want it to finish. ‘So are we going to arrest Paxton tonight? Will we need to cuff him?’

  ‘He buried his only son less than twelve hours ago and he’s not going anywhere. We can wait until the morning.’

  ‘So you don’t think he’s a flight risk?’

  ‘I think you’ve been watching too many cop shows.’ Josh wasn’t looking forward to the morning. He had known and respected Paxton all his life and the thought of having to arrest him, particularly when he was still grieving, made him ill.

  Steve had had a big day and was totally exhausted but, the minute he entered his second floor apartment, he smelt his favourite fragrance, Allure, and knew that Bianca had returned from Nepal and would be in his bed. They had been lovers on and off since university days and, while she didn’t live with him, she had a key to the apartment and a wardrobe for a change of clothes and her toiletries. She was a stunning, voluptuous, young woman with olive-brown skin, jet-black hair, and a toned body from years spent mountain climbing. They had discussed marriage many times but her father, Norris Scott-Tempy, neither liked Steve nor thought that he was good enough for his daughter. It was rumoured that he had been christened Norris Scott Tempy but had added the hyphen because he thought the extended surname fitted his pretention to class.

  Scott-Tempy had anticipated the coal seam gas boom and had borrowed to the hilt to buy cheap motels and housing in the valley. He’d then evicted the locals in anticipation of the surge of itinerant workers whose employers would pay double the going rental rates. He saw himself as a man about town but Steve thought of him as a slum lord. His wife, Bettina, was a beautiful, Maltese woman and Steve often wondered what she saw in the sour-faced, tight-fisted Norris.

  One thing he was sure of was that Bianca’s looks didn’t come from her father. Steve’s relationship with her was tempestuous, mainly because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut when it came to her father but, when she turned up out of the blue like tonight, he thought himself the luckiest man in the world. Normally he would have snuggled up to her and made passionate love, but tonight was different. He felt the heat of her body and breathed in her fragrance but, amazingly, there was no desire, no stirring in his loins.

  He silently cursed Paxton. What would Bianca think in the morning? He stared up at the blackness of the ceiling, listening to her soft rhythmic breathing as he struggled to get his head around the day’s events. He was bone-tired but knew it was pointless trying to sleep - his mind refused to shut down. All Paxton’s power and money wouldn’t save him from a lengthy jail sentence once word got out about what he had done. Steve wondered who he could share his secret with, who he could talk to, and how long it would remain a secret? He momentarily thought about waking Bianca but stopped himself, not knowing how she would react, given her father’s love of the coal seam gas companies.

  Besides Steve, the Paisley Chronicle had one full-time employee, one part-timer and, when he felt like it, Steve’s sexagenarian father, Len. The paper operated from a double-fronted shop on Main Street. It was rare for anyone other than Steve to work on Saturdays, and even rarer for them to be there at 7am, so he was surprised to find the door open. He was exhausted and wondered whether he’d forgotten to lock up the night before. As he entered the office, he heard sounds coming from the despatch section at the rear of the building. ‘Hello,’ he shouted.

  ‘Steve, I thought I’d clean up and be gone before you arrived,’ croaked a grey-haired man, nearly as skinny as the broom he was stooped over. ‘Couldn’t you sleep?’

  ‘Dad, how many times do I have to tell you? I’ve got contract cleaners coming in.’

  ‘Well, you’d better get rid of them, they’re no good. What was the excitement about last night? I heard one of CEGL’s wells blew up. I wish I had been there. I would’ve fanned the flames.’

  ‘I was there and it was pretty spectacular.’

  ‘So what happened? How’d it start?’ His father’s face was lined and his jowls were sunken but his green eyes were alert and twinkling.

  ‘You can’t breathe a word of what I’m about to tell you, Dad.’ For the next five minutes, Steve related what had happened and how Billy had supposedly seen a big black wolf. ‘That stupid Paxton will be caught before the week is out. He’ll go to jail and the anti-CEGL forces in the valley will lose all credibility. Can you believe he was so stupid?’

  ‘You did say the well exploded a bit after midnight, didn’t you Son?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Phew. It’s lucky you didn’t say anything last night then.’

  ‘Why?’
br />   His father sat down at one of the desks, rubbing his gnarled hands together. ‘I was with Charles Paxton last night. I knew he’d need company so I went to his home around ten o’clock and didn’t leave until two-thirty. We talked and had a few drinks. I think it helped ease his pain.’

  ‘Dad! Dad, don’t be as stupid as he is. You weren’t at his home last night and since when have you been friends with him? You’re too old to go to jail, so forget about this foolishness.’

  ‘I’m telling the truth, Son. Have you considered that there might be more than one black dog in the valley?’

  ‘Of course, but there’s only one that looks like a wolf, and it wouldn’t surprise me to find that it has a burnt coat.’

  ‘I need a coffee.’ The old man sighed, holding his head in his hands. ‘But there’s no milk in the fridge.’

  ‘Are you all right, Dad?’

  ‘I’m feeling a little dizzy, but it’s nothing a good cup of coffee won’t fix. I’ll go and get some milk,’ he said, stumbling as he stood up.

  ‘Sit down, Dad. Take it easy. I’ll get the milk. I want you to forget about Paxton. You’ll only get yourself in trouble. I’ll lock the door after me to stop anyone coming in and disturbing you, so why don’t you put your head down and have a rest?’

  ‘That’s a good idea.’ His father crossed his arms on the table and rested his head on them.

  As soon as Steve closed the front door, his father staged an amazing recovery and, for one so old, showed amazing alacrity. He first called his wife. It was short and sweet and she had no hesitation in agreeing with him. His second call was to Paxton and the phone rang ten times before he answered, sounding slurred and hung-over. However it did not take him long to focus and express his gratitude.

  Paxton hung up the phone and staggered out onto the verandah, nearly tripping over Cosmos lying across the door. He bent down and patted the dog’s head, rubbed his tummy and checked his magnificent, shiny black coat. There wasn’t so much as a burnt hair, let alone a singe mark and Paxton breathed a sigh of relief. The satisfaction of what he had done had disappeared; he had a crushing hangover and, if it were not for Len Forrest, he’d be in a lot of trouble. His actions the night before had done nothing to remove the aching pain from his heart and, while he cursed himself for acting impulsively, he was unrepentant and still seething.

  There were half-a-dozen locals chatting in the milk bar while they waited for the newspapers from Sydney to arrive. Steve took a carton of milk from the refrigerator and then heard someone laugh and say, ‘If you didn’t know any different, that Paxton dog would pass for a wolf.’ There was a murmur of assent and then someone else said, ‘I think it’s just what we needed. Now maybe those gas companies will clear out of the valley.’ Steve paid for the milk, thinking, so much for it being secret.

  Sandi patted the big black dog that so resembled a wolf, while her partner listened in amazement to Paxton. He said that he knew nothing about the destruction of the gas well other than that the explosion had rocked the house and that, along with Len Forrest, he had gone outside and they had seen a red glow in the sky. Other than that, he had not left his house.

  It was only a short drive to the Forrests’ place, where Len confirmed everything Paxton had said. Maggie, who was known to be as honest as the day was long, added that Len had left home before nine-thirty and, being the light sleeper that she was, she had heard him come in just after three o’clock. Josh was emotionally torn; he had not been looking forward to arresting Paxton but, by the same token, was shocked to find that three pillars of the local community could tell lies so easily. What was big gas doing to his community?

  Paxton, while well respected, would never have won a popularity contest, but this largely changed overnight. People walked across the street just to say hello and others wanted to buy him a drink; storekeepers, restaurateurs and motel proprietors, who did a lot of business with the gas companies, were not so generous. Len Forrest had always been gregarious, happy and generous with his time and what little money he had. The locals slapped him on the back, high-fived him and there wasn’t a winery in the valley that would charge him for a drink or a meal, but there were many in the town who disapproved of what he had done. Paisley had created two unlikely heroes and, to those who knew of Maggie Forrest’s involvement, a heroine, but the ‘heroes’ were not universally popular or supported.

  Billy McGregor and his hoon friends sat around the pub, drinking and talking, amazed at how popular the two old men had become with most of the townsfolk. Billy noted that they hadn’t been charged or punished and instead were lauded. He rationalised that, if that was how it worked for them, maybe he and his mates should blow up a few gas wells too. Little did he know that Steve Forrest had warned his father that a consequence of his lies would be to induce others to commit the copy-cat destruction of more gas wells.

  Chapter 4

  Joanna Singer had just turned forty-four when she collapsed with a heart attack while cleaning one of her clients’ houses. Paramedics responded to the emergency call within minutes but defibrillation was not successful and an hour later she was pronounced dead.

  She had arrived in Paisley twenty-five years earlier, a single mother with two toddlers and had rented a shack on thirty-five acres on the outskirts of the valley, near the small town of Tura. Many said that the hard work she had taken on had worn her out.

  Despite its rugged beauty, it was one of the few infertile areas in the valley, with an abundance of gum trees and tumbleweed and little else. The properties in the area had originally been granted by the government as residential allotments to soldiers returning from the First World War, who consequently became known as estatees. Originally there was a certain honour to the name but, as the years elapsed, estatee became associated with being poor, even though the residents never saw themselves in that light. Many of Joanna’s neighbours lived on residential blocks as large as seventy-five acres and had moved there because they were hiding something from their past and looking for privacy on their own piece of paradise.

  For Joanna it was quiet and peaceful, she loved the freedom and the rent was cheap. She was remarkably industrious and, with both kids in her old beat-up Volkswagen, she drove around the towns in the valley, offering to wash and iron clothes. It wasn’t long before she had established a regular clientele. When young Danny and Carol were old enough to go to school, Joanna started cleaning houses in the area. She worked hard, didn’t go out, didn’t waste money and soon saved enough to put a deposit on the property she was renting. Her only indulgence was the plants and trailer loads of black soil she bought to create a stunning little garden around the house. She had no close friends and seemed to live her life solely for her children. However, once they left home in their late teens, she rarely heard from or saw them but, when she did, they were always after money. Sadly, when she was buried, only a few of her long-term clients were at her graveside.

  Lawyers for Joanna’s estate placed the requisite notices in newspapers and unsuccessfully used their best efforts to find Carol and Danny, who were Joanna’s sole beneficiaries. Joanna had managed to pay off the mortgage and her estate comprised the property and a new second-hand Toyota Corolla that she had treated herself to in a moment of despair.

  Four years before Joanna’s death, 300 acres, a few kilometres to the west of her property, was bought, anonymously, by CEGL. No-one in the area was aware of this until it was too late.

  A two-metre steel mesh and barbed wire fence was erected to encompass the property but, other than this, it lay undisturbed for twelve months, while CEGL lodged applications for coal seam gas exploration licences which ran to thousands of pages. The environment authority application by itself was nine hundred pages and was signed off by seventeen employees with illustrious titles like: Manager Engineering Upstream, Environmental Scientist, Manager Water Strategy and Sustainability, Senior Engineer Technical Interfaces and Legal Counsel Upstream. CEGL knew that the paperwork detailing the proces
s was far more important than the process itself and they buried the responsible government departments in a mass of documents that they had neither the expertise nor the time to adequately assess. After the authorities and licences were issued, the only regulation was company self-regulation; not unlike licensing a fox to look after a chicken coop.

  A placard, Keep Out CEGL Construction Site, was affixed to the gates and, soon after, workers began laying a gravel track and clearing a five-acre square section. Twenty portafabs, made up of offices, storage and ablutions, were placed around its perimeter. It didn’t take long to drill the first of eight exploration wells.

  A few weeks after Joanna’s death, three CEGL trucks appeared on the red dirt track at the front of her property. One of the trucks was fitted with a seismic vibratory plate and it stopped every fifteen metres along the three hundred and fifty metre boundary where the plate was lowered to the ground. The other two trucks carried sophisticated computers and geophones, which were placed in a geometric array on the surface to detect the seismic signals from the changes in rock type or faults. CEGL knew that there were deep coal seams in the area and the seismic testing allowed their geologists to confirm and measure their extent and depth. However, before the volume of methane and its flow pressure could be measured, exploration wells had to be sunk.

  While Joanna’s lawyers had been unable to contact her children, CEGL’s attorneys had no such problem, having more resources and a large, powerful client that desperately wanted access to her property. Within a week, a private investigator had located Carol and Danny, informed them of their mother’s passing and offered to lease the property that they were going to inherit; a corporate client was looking for grazing land. Danny wasn’t very bright but he had a nose for a dollar and told them he wasn’t interested in leasing and that if their client wanted the property it would have to buy it. CEGL’s management did not normally buy property when they could dupe landowners into granting access agreements, but thirty-five acres was a small allotment; it was cheap and would give them a toehold where they could sink another two exploration wells. They also knew that the wells, once sunk, would devalue the adjoining properties, making their subsequent work easier. By the time Carol and Danny marched into their mother’s lawyer’s office, they had come to an agreement to sell the property to CEGL. Two hours later they were back on the road to Sydney, not having been able to spare even ten minutes to visit their mother’s grave.