Read Online Dirty Fracking Business by Peter Ralph - Free Book Online Page B

Well, his parents had not brought him up to tell lies but, as he thought about this, he smiled at the irony of them having become such convincing liars themselves.
    ‘Yeah, real funny, Buffy, I don’t think,’ he said.
    The Fisher Valley Protective Alliance was a group of townsfolk and valley people vehemently opposed to the extraction of coal seam gas. It published a weekly newsletter and, unlike Steve Forrest, had no compunction about unleashing a vicious attack on CEGL and the safety of the gas wells dotted around the valley.
    Paisley Police Station was a single-level brick building with a main office, a holding cell, a small, tight driveway and three car parks at the rear strictly reserved for police. ‘No parking at any time’ signs ran the length of the driveway. The window in Josh Gibson’s corner of the office looked directly out onto the driveway and he groaned when a silver Porsche pulled up directly in front of him, completely blocking the driveway. He was glad that his two offsiders were out making calls, because he had a feeling that he would not like them to see what was about to occur. A middle-aged woman with sandy hair alighted, wearing a pants suit and silk scarf that would not be out of place in Paris. She quickly checked her perfectly applied make-up in the driver’s door rear-vision mirror, but it failed to disguise the hardness of her features.
    Josh had met Moira Raymond three years earlier when she had parked in exactly the same spot and he had told her to move or he would book her. As cool as a cucumber, she had pulled out her mobile, punched in a number and, while he was still shouting at her, she passed it to him. ‘It’s the Chief Commissioner. He’d like a few words with you.’ It was the first and only time he had ever spoken to the state’s top cop and he was told that Moira was a personal friend and that he should do everything he could to help her. Since then, he had watched her take the premier and senior government ministers on tours of the gas wells around Paisley on many occasions and later dine with them. Whenever she was with a politician, she was quick to spruik the benefits to the state and nation of extracting coal seam gas.
    She was as comfortable drinking beer and telling crude jokes in the company of labourers she employed on gas wells as she was sipping Dom Perignon with oil barons. Moira was a complex mix of rapier-wit and charm, which she could turn off and on at a whim. In the not too distant future, with the proviso that she did not fall at a hurdle, she would be CEGL’s CEO. She was grimly determined that those opposed to the extraction of coal seam gas in the Fisher Valley would not be that hurdle.
    ‘Good morning, Josh.’ Moira smiled through perfectly capped teeth. ‘How are you this beautiful day?’
    ‘I’m fine, Moira. What brings you here?’ He knew that whatever had brought her here could not be good for him.
    ‘Have you made any arrests yet?’
    ‘No. We don’t know that it wasn’t an accident.’
    ‘God, the whole town knows it was sabotage, knows who did it and knows Len Forrest is a liar. You know that, don’t you Josh?’ She rested a perfectly manicured hand on his wrist in the same way a mother restrains her child from straying into danger.
    ‘No, I don’t.’
    Her icy blue, unblinking eyes locked onto him and she slowly shook her head. ‘We plugged the well last night and guess what we found?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ he muttered.
    ‘A small melted mass of metal that looks like a petrol drum.’
    ‘Don’t your maintenance guys carry diesel and oilcans with them?’
    ‘Are you saying that one of my employees left an oilcan at the well? It’s not possible. They have to account for everything on a report sheet.’
    ‘People make mistakes and what you’ve found doesn’t prove anything.’
    ‘My people don’t make mistakes.’ She scowled. ‘I really hoped you’d be more cooperative. If any more of our wells are sabotaged,