Free Challis - 03 - Snapshot by Garry Disher Page B

said.

    They were passing the detention
centre near Waterloo when she was forced onto the gravel verge by an oncoming
Subaru, which veered across in front of her and onto the centres main
driveway, narrowly missing a silver Passat that had emerged to wait for a gap
in traffic. Tessa Kane, who clearly didnt deserve a showbag. Pam tooted, and
so did the Passat.

    * * * *

    13

    Whoops,
shed cut off those cops in their sports car and nearly collected a Passat.
Tessa Kane grinned ruefully, shrugging an apology at Pam Murphy and John
Tankard. Pam returned the grin, her cap at a rakish angle. A tough little
broad, Tessa thought, heading towards the main gate.

    The detention centre was a cheerless
expanse of chilly cement-block huts behind razor wire. Originally intended for
350 inmates, it had held almost 500 asylum seekers at one stage, in a
concentrated knot of misery. Now the flood of asylum seekers had dried up and
most of the detainees had been shipped back and a few granted residence visas.
Eighty were left: a handful of asylum seekers from the Middle East, and people
who had breached or overstayed their tourist visas. Soon all would be deported.

    The centre had delivered no benefits
to Waterloo that Tessa had seen. Most of the locals had been apathetic, a
handful angry and ashamed, and the remainder rubbed their hands together at
this God-given opportunity to relish their prejudices. They seemed to applaud
the perimeter guard whod shouted at a detainee: You are one ugly fucking
Arab. There had been plenty of letters to the editor after Tessa had published
that quote, objecting to the word fucking; none objecting to the matter of
detention itself, of course, or the centre, or the mindset of the guard. It had
beenstill wasan unhappy place. Last week there had been a riottermed a disturbance
by corrections staffand today Tessa could see men and children on the flat
roof of the gymnasium, displaying banners: We Are Human Not Animal. In
the first six weeks of operation, two men had been trapped on the razor wire;
over a ten-month period in the second year, seven inmates had sewn their lips
together; and most had gone on a hunger strike at one time or another. Fires
had been lit, rocks thrown, tear gas used.

    That had been the public face of
almost all of Australias detention centres, the one you saw on commercial
televisions current affairs programs. Tessa had been interested in the hidden
stories: mental illness; treatment refused for sexually abused children; the
dubious backgrounds and qualifications of the guards; the attitudes of the
Refugee Review Tribunal and Department of Immigration staff. There had also
been whispers of corruption. Apparently Charlie Mead and his section heads had
routinely defrauded the federal, state and local governments by artificially
inflating the cost of repairs, provisions, services and wages, the benefit
flowing to their employer, ANZCOR, an American company that managed prisons and
detention centres under contract to the governments of Australia and New
Zealand. They operated out of Utah and had branches in Canada and the UK.

    And soon the detention centre would
close its doors. Tessa wanted one last opportunity to nail the detention system
itself, and Charlie Meads role in it, to the wall.

    Why had Mead agreed to see her? For
the past three years hed been typically contemptuous of the media seeking
interviews, and do-gooders befriending the inmates. Perhaps hed got sick of
the way she always concluded her articles with the words Centre management
declined to comment, or he simply didnt care, now that hed be moving on.

    Tessa ran through her mental notes
on him. Born in Durban, South Africa, fifty-five years ago; served in the army
for ten years before completing a law degree in Johannesburg and an MBA in
London. Worked in prison management in the UK, then successfully applied for
the position of deputy managerand later managerof a maximum-security prison
in Brisbane. There his tough line