The Convict Stain: The Dan Delaney Mysteries, #6

By David McGill

Late January 1985 Dame Kiri is launching Vukovich Sauvignon Blanc on the Sydney Opera House steps with major shareholders the Delaney family present. The American nuclear warship the Buchanan is in harbour for ANZUS exercises and protesters are out in force, among them Ali Delaney and her American boyfriend. Detective Sergeant Maria Pikowai, née Delaney, is in town as protection detail for New Zealand Prime Minister David Lange secretly meeting his Australian counterpart Bob Hawke in the Sydney Hilton hotel. DS Pikowai joins Australian and American security forces confronting plots to sink the warship, kidnap Lange and destroy the ANZUS accord. Then there are the Delaney family problems damned and potentially redeemed by the convict stain. In his sixth outing Dan Delaney is forced to learn more than he wants to about his origins, and it could be the reconciling of his divided family. 

 

'An intense part of New Zealand and Australian history, remodelled with the Paekakariki wordsmith's magic.' David Haxton, Kapiti News and NZ Herald

'You never feel short-changed in a McGill mystery.' David Hill, NZ Listener

'A rollicking tale made especially interesting through its links to recent historical events. Black humour reminiscent of Janet Evanovich.' Rob Crozier 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Silver Owl Press
• Release date: Jun 29, 2023
• ISBN: 9780995133648

David McGill

David McGill is a New Zealand social historian and fiction writer who has published 60 books. Born in Auckland, educated in the Bay of Plenty and at a Christchurch seminary, he trained as a teacher and did a BA at Victoria University of Wellington. He worked as a feature writer for The Listener, Sydney’s The Bulletin, London’s TVTimes, wrote columns for the Evening Post in Wellington and edited a local lifestyle magazine before becoming a full-time writer in 1984. His book subjects include Ghost Towns of New Zealand and the country’s first bushranger, local and national heritage buildings, Kiwi prisoners of war, the history of the NZ Customs Department, a biography of a criminal lawyer, a personal history of rock music, a rail journey around the country, historical and comic novels, several thrillers and six collections of Kiwi slang and recently seven Dan Delaney Mysteries. He collects owl figurines and reads thrillers. His website www.davidmcgill.co.nz includes blogs related to his books and synopses and reviews by clicking on covers.

Book preview

Part One

Australian Relations

Chapter One

Dan

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa extended her lace-gloved hand across the steps below the Sydney Opera House. The deep blue harbor was as operatic a backdrop as you could wish for, decorated with taught mainsails and bulging spinnakers and sturdy little green and yellow ferries seemingly under attack from squadrons of squawking, wheeling, diving seagulls. The scene was anchored and framed by the mighty span of the harbour bridge. It was picture perfect as planned, press cameras capturing a classic marketing photo op for Dan Delaney’s beautiful, beaming daughter-in-law Mira Vukovich/Delaney shaking the proffered hand of their Kiwi prima donna assoluta.

‘Welcome to Dame Kiri and all our Australian friends,’ Mira spoke into the crackling microphone, one hand holding her large pale-blue straw hat in place. ‘Vukovich Vineyards is truly honoured to have you all here, and doubly honoured that our own Dame Kiri has graciously agreed to launch our new wine. We believe that our wine is as elegant, as exquisite, as ravishing as our own national operatic treasure.’

There were more flashes from press cameras, the artificial light enhancement scarcely necessary on this squint-bright and breezy inferno of a late January morning. There were cheers and a few jeers and sustained ripples of applause. The positive reactions were undoubtedly from the vested interests such as family, the wholesale distributors, the commercial folk from the New Zealand Embassy, and maybe some of the curious who materialised from nowhere at the sighting of a filmed assembly. The ABC cameraman was kneeling on the bottom step, filming the moment. A woman pushing against Dan, bulging out of a too tight, teal-coloured tank-top and clashing purple matadors, was yelling at her short, plain companion: ‘Look, it’s the singing Maori princess. Seen her on the teev, yeah. Had to be Paul Hogan’s Show.’

The wind was intensifying, garbling Mira’s words and attacking the large hats and loose dresses women were endeavouring to hold on to. Some lost hats, and among them a few male Panama hats, whisked away over the harbour, disappearing into the haze and chop. Mira wasn’t to know the wind would conspire against an al fresco launch. It was an uphill battle anyway persuading Ockers to try Kiwi Sauvignon Blanc when their only previous experience was Riesling and Gewurztraminer paint-strippers. However, the ABC cameraman and the press were here, and of course the time-sensitive dame, so the show had to go on.

‘… as Kiwi as Kiri,’ Mira’s voice erupted into a wind lull. ‘It is named after a classic French wine, but I can assure you it is something else that could only come from our own unique soft southern climate and well-drained gravel soils. You will enjoy citrus and gooseberry notes, you will enjoy the most refreshing taste you have never experienced. We offer you crisp green flavours you need on a hot Sydney day to accompany your renowned rock oysters and our own delicacy, whitebait, specially flown in for this occasion. We will be serving you our wine shortly in the Harbour Room, to which by special dispensation you are all invited. Our Koromiko Sauvignon Blanc is an instant and irresistible classic.’

‘Who’s the PR hack wrote this load of bulldust?’ a fruity voice snickered behind Dan. He swung round. A burly man in a yellow check suit was looking about for approval.

‘You’d know, Max,’ somebody laughed.

‘Yer,’ another agreed. ‘You prob’ly hire the same hack.’

Max was waving away the remark with a suit-mismatched mauve hankie he flipped out of his top pocket, using it to dab at his perspiring forehead.

‘Kiri!’ a photographer hollered. ‘Look this way, will ya?’

Kiri turned slowly in stage regal fashion, holding her flapping butter-coloured straw hat in place. She looked as composed as she had a few years ago in Westminster Abbey, though this time she wore a more subdued and certainly more form-fitting version of the peacock yellow and blue blanket she sported at the Royal Wedding. She looked spectacular, and an Embassy man told Mira that she pretty much guaranteed media coverage for the launch. He didn’t think they had much to worry about from Max, there was no evidence of any press gang like those who surrounded Frank Sinatra at the airport and taunted him into taking a swing at one of them.

Mira’s offer of a free and mostly liquid lunch and the chance to escape from this dire weather had the crowd rushing the steps. Some maybe wanted to shake the hand of the woman who sang for the next king and his shy young bride. Dan had no doubt the burly little olive-dark man had that in mind. He had last seen Marty Webber decades ago doing dodgy deals in Wellington. Here he was, had to be nipping 80, creaming it in Sydney property and funding the launch. With one hand he was holding on to a stunning woman in a red silk sheath as exotic as a ‘dusky maiden’ Tretchikoff painting, with the other he was gesticulating at the slender French wine merchant he earlier assured his Kiwi guests would be their entrée into Europe.

‘She’s no threat to our Dame Joan,’ the loud lady was saying. Her companion suggested she was prettier. ‘If you like the Abo look,’ she scoffed.

Dan was distracted by the disturbance on the harbour. The menacing shape of a dark grey warship was sliding directly through the fragile scattering of yachts tacking away like a school of fish fleeing a shark. In Auckland harbour yachts would be swarming instead of fleeing the warship, protesting the Yankee intrusion. He knew from the papers there were protests here too. Ali would have the details. She had been one of the Auckland protesters. He didn’t doubt she would be among the local protesters, since she took up the junior lectureship at Sydney University. He’d find out soon enough, she had confirmed she was coming to share the Vukovich/Delaney family occasion. She was uncharacteristically late.

A jab in the kidneys jolted him out of pondering his older daughter’s whereabouts. It was his wife, pushing across him and wanting to know from his son if Mira gave the press as agreed both surnames, her maiden name and her married name.

‘Dunno,’ Matt said. ‘But she is the only Vukovich. And it was her idea to take our sauv blanc offshore.’

‘Correct me if I’m wrong,’ Jasenka Delaney said nastily. ‘I thought Matua were first to market Sauvignon Blanc abroad.’

‘In Europe,’ Dan said hastily. ‘But we can claim first dibs in Australia.’

Jas snorted and took off up the steps, muttering that if you

wanted something done, you did it yourself. Dan shrugged at Matt, said it was the weather making her cranky. He gave Dan a sceptical look and said he’d best get between them. Dan stood there uncertainly, watching his son follow his wife. He was not her son but that was not usually a problem, and they were all directors of the company. Mira was the problem for Jas. It was a small and probably sensible thing commercially Mira dropping Delaney as her surname, but his traditional wife seemed to think it a big deal.

It was a different and hopefully small concern Dan had. Matt had said Mira was the only Vukovich. Her brother was rumoured to have fled to Australia after his attempt on Matt’s life. He was conceivably still alive and kicking whoever, given he was in his early 50s, Matt’s age. He couldn’t come back to claim his half-share of the Vukovich Vineyards without facing a long prison term, but he could cause trouble this side of the Ditch.

‘Daniel Delaney?’

He turned to face a tall, gaunt man maybe in his thirties. He had the plummy voice and languid manner of the British upper classes. Dan flashed on Jono Smith all those years ago. He had the same long, horsey face, irritating blond hair falling over one eye, but he was tanned a deep chestnut. An open white shirt revealed a mix of tan and wiry chest hair. The crumpled cerise linen suit with the wide lapels and his crooked, buck-toothed grin brought to mind a fictional character Ali rabbited on about, Barry Humphries’ ratbag cartoonish diplomat the appalling Sir Les Patterson.

‘Brian Portillo,’ he said, capturing Dan’s hand. ‘I work with Alice. Freelance.’

‘Dan will do,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know they had freelancers at the university.’

‘Nah,’ he laughed. ‘We work for the National Times.’

It was news to Dan. Perhaps junior lecturers were allowed to freelance?

‘Come on,’ Portillo said. ‘Let’s join your party. Can’t wait to try your plonk after the big plug it got. And an oyster or 12.’ Definitely a gourmand in the Sir Les mould.

The Harbour Room was buzzing as people encouragingly knocked back the Vukovich wine and the buffet spread, nobody yet taking seats for the inevitable speeches. Photographers were getting in the faces of the newsworthy, he thought he spotted the Aussie film star Bryan Brown and his equally famous film star wife Rachel Ward, talking to New Zealand’s own Sam Neill. The Aboriginal man wearing a Panama at a gravity defying angle was a champion boxer, or was he a rugby league star? Even the ABC cameraman was roaming about. Marty had attracted more celebrities than Dan expected. The squawks of excitement of the big teal and purple lady reinforced celebrity recognition, as she reached to grab another drink from the waiter’s tray. Brian Portillo captured drinks as Jas fronted, telling Dan it was time he was at the top table.

‘Mrs Delaney?’ Portillo said, passing Dan a drink and congratulating her on the turnout.

‘You are?’

He told her who he was and who he worked for, emphasising that he was employed by the country’s leading magazine.

‘The Times,’ Jas repeated, her voice reversing from peremptory to complaisant. ‘My husband can give you the background on our company. I must get back to our principal guest, but please come up later if you have any further questions. Or just come anyway. I am sure Dame Kiri and her husband would like to say hello.’

Jas could be very appealing when she wanted to. Portillo seemed to enjoy her two-handed squeeze of his arm.

‘Lovely lady,’ he said as they observed her sashaying through the increasingly boisterous gathering. It was nice the wife was appreciated, but Dan preferred it was not by this leering, drunken Lothario.

‘You were saying you worked with my daughter?’ Dan said, sipping at their wine he was not a huge fan of. Daytime drinking gave him a headache, white wine made it worse – something he could not ever admit to wife, son and daughter-in-law.

Portillo upended the shell and gulped an oyster down his gullet, burped, swallowed his wine and reached for replenishments.

Dan turned towards the epic window view of the harbour and bridge to avoid the sight if not the sound of another oyster ingested. Unlike Sir Les he didn’t belch, dribble or chunder, but he soon would be at this rate. ‘Magnifico,’ he sighed. ‘No, I have not had the pleasure, at least not yet, of working with your daughter. I met her in the Mitchell restaurant. You familiar with it?’

Dan shook his head. Portillo explained that it was a café on top of the Mitchell Library, the premier research institute in the city, where they did great maple waffles. Over a plate of them they got talking. She was researching Kiwi writers in Surry Hills, an inner-city suburb, if Dan knew it.

He told him he knew no more about Sydney than the view out the window and newsclips of the noisy crowd on the hill at test matches.

Portillo said it was good to start with the highlights, journos always did, and he gave her a lift back to the scruffy end of Surry Hills, where for the sake of academic verisimilitude she lived the same kind of spartan life once endured by wife and husband writers Ruth Park and D’Arcy Niland. She declined his offer of a drink at the corner hostelry, said she was expecting Brad back. He told Dan about his supposedly retiring daughter at the forefront of every downtown protest, how it cost her the trial position at the university and hence her freelancing.

Dan learned a lot more than he wanted to about this sea change in his studious, retiring daughter. He swallowed concern that she was without a real job and told him he was expecting her here today, she was obviously delayed.

Likewise, Portillo said. She was keeping him informed about local protests against the ANZUS naval exercises. He nodded out the window.

Dan said he saw the American warship, knew from the media it was the Buchanan, which was rumoured to be trying to enter New Zealand’s nuclear-resistant waters.

He gave Dan an assessing look. ‘I knew your brother Sean. We worked together on one of Rupert Murdoch’s rags, until God let me go. He was doing one of his unannounced visits to the newsroom and saw me with my feet up. He tapped me on the shoulder, told me he paid people to work not loaf and I was fired. It was Sean told me about your Security Intelligence Service connections.’

The slovenly Sir Les speech had disappeared. Dan told himself he would have to be careful with this joker. He looked around at the merry gathering, not because he thought anybody might overhear talk of supposedly secret employment he was not ashamed of. It was a long time since he had any role or even contact with spy services. Indeed, the last connection with any spy service was the Israeli one a decade ago, when his family got caught up in a terrorist incident in Jerusalem. Ali would not have been able to tell this fellow anything, certainly nothing remotely current or relevant to Australia. It was totally unexpected, almost surreal, to be bailed up at a wine promotion by this sly member of the Fourth Estate — if that is what he was.

‘What kind of journalist did you say you were?’

Portillo shrugged, leaned away to capture another glass off the passing waiter’s tray. Back in Sir Les mode, which was not funny. It was the boozing did for Dan’s brother.

‘Just a feature writer,’ Portillo said, scoffing an entire whitebait fritter. ‘Not bad,’ he said, spraying bits of eggy matter. ‘If you ignore the fishy eyes.’

‘You’re not here to write about an unknown Kiwi wine company?’

He shrugged, swigged his wine. ‘If I find an angle.’

‘A sleaze angle?’

‘Trust me, I am not trying to dig any dirt on you folk. I am very fond of Ali. But I am a little concerned about her.’

Dan flushed with anger. This cheap bastard had ambushed him, hinting at his daughter in trouble. He felt a spurt of anger, not just at the suggestion his daughter was threatened, but also at the snarky manner in which it was made, as if he wanted to capitalise on the situation. He considered decking him, but reined in the urge, telling himself that is exactly what journos liked, viz Sinatra. Maybe if he invited him outside, where there was no audience. Dan grabbed his arm, spilling the family wine over his suit, suggested they slip away from the crowd and he could tell all about it.

The hubbub died as the doors closed on the gathering and they stood on the deep purple carpet that disappeared around the corridor’s curve.

‘It’s what your daughter’s working on,’ he said, swiping his hand across the damp patches and stepping back from Dan. ‘Nothing’s happened,’ he said quickly. ‘But Frankie Frankuvich is bad news.’

Dan took a deep breath. ‘You’d better explain.’

He pulled out a packet of cigarettes, offered them. Dan shook his head. He used a brass lighter, inhaled greedily and blew the smoke away from him. ‘You’ve not heard of Frankie?’ Dan said he had not. He promised the short version. Frankie had for several decades been the King of the Cross, ran the gambling, drugs, prossies, including the male strippers. He nodded back at the party, said one of them was in there.

It might have been a short version, but it still took him some time to do a potted bio of Frankie’s seedy career. Ali met him through the doyenne of Les Girls, the male/female stripper the others called Carmen.

She was the first name that rang a bell. Dan had been involved in arresting her for running a suburban brothel during his forgettable stint working with the Wellington Vice Squad. She had emigrated to the more lucrative pastures of Kings Cross and was now retired in Surry Hills, and Ali had been interviewing her. Small world.

Those on the shady side were a magnet for journalists, but Dan would not have thought his daughter would be one of them. She tended to demure, if not prudish. Now she interviewed male ladies of the night and had an American boyfriend. A case perhaps of travel broadening the mind, but Dan was not inclined to be broadminded about his formerly reserved daughter manning the protest barricades and interviewing lowlife.

He switched back on to Portillo saying one of the ‘girls’ was now a real girl, after a successful op. Dan did not have the faintest idea what he was on about. He might have noticed, Portillo continued, the leggy lass the leg-challenged ancient Mediterranean joker was trying to hold on to? Dan admitted it was hard to miss her, but he didn’t admit to knowing Marty Webber from way back.

Frankie, Portillo continued, ran those alternative girls until he took advantage of some of them and now had full-blown AIDS. He was dying and had lost everything, his business taken over by Yucca O’Toole, but that was another story. He seemed to have a lot of other stories.

Maybe he sensed Dan was getting toey. Now Frankie, he said quickly, was wasting away in a dump in Surry Hills and Carmen took him takeaways, ‘meals on heels’ she called it. Ali had written a story on her that the Times ran. When Carmen had to leave town, she got Ali to deliver Frankie the takeaway tucker. It was inevitable Ali wanted his story too. She was trying to persuade Frankie to talk.

‘He doesn’t sound dangerous.’

‘He might be. He has played host to a good few of the movers and shakers around the place. They don’t want their names in print, well, not in the context of consorting with prostitutes, most certainly not if they are gender benders. Bad for careers. He no longer has anything to lose, not now he is about to lose his life. If he started naming names, you can imagine there would be repercussions.’

‘Is there a point to all this?’

‘Yes. Ali’s boyfriend is a tad on the extreme side about American military might, particularly the blue-water kind. I have a few contacts in your old world. You will know what I mean. You saw that American warship. There are a lot of rumours floating – sorry, unintentional pun — about plans to do something spectacular in the way of protest. As you would expect there are countermoves underway on the part of the surveillance agencies.’

Dan had had a gutsful of all these opaque claims. It was time to get particular with this clown he suspected was playing both sides to his advantage. Portillo backed away as he grabbed his obliging lapels. He shoved him against the gleaming corridor wall and got up close. ‘Tell me exactly what you know about these protests you claim my daughter is involved