Page 64 of The Woodcarver's Model
“Well, to be honest…I finally discovered politics! Yeah, wild, huh? There are so many things I don’t understand.”
She leaned forward a little to give him a better view of her cleavage.
“W-well, feel free to ask me anything, my dear. I’m here to educate and serve.” He laughed.
“Well, like I said, I’m a little new to politics, so I don’t know all the rules yet, but I was wondering if someone in government, let’s say, I don’t know, a city alderman, offered to do you a big favour if you did him a favour in return—would that be legal?”
“Well…I suppose it would depend on the type of favour he was being asked to do and the favour he was expecting in return.”
“Oh,” she answered, sounding a little confused. “How about, if a constituent asked the alderman for help in having a tree planted in his neighbourhood park in exchange for a little plaque thanking the alderman for his assistance, then there would be no problem with that, would there?”
“No. There’d be nothing wrong in that act of gratitude. It would be quite nice of someone to do something like that,” he said. “But if that same alderman blocked passage of a zoning bill in order to prevent the construction of, let’s say subsidised housing in that same neighbourhood in exchange for a large campaign donation… Well, that would be another thing altogether.”
“Well, that’s what I thought. So, it seems that the wrongfulness rides on how much the alderman benefits from the deal.”
“That, young lady, sums it up nicely.”
“So, what about this case then?”
Karen pulled out the copy Rob had made of the letter he had taken from Cedric’s office. She handed it to McCutcheon.
“In your experience, would this be evidence suggesting an unlawful act was being perpetrated that would warrant investigation?”
As the politician began to read the letter, Karen reached into her purse and extracted her phone.
He was slow to recognise the document at first, but as he read the letter, his hands began to shake. When Karen saw him reach the stage of shifting uncomfortably in his chair and licking his lips as if they would no longer function, she pressed ‘Play’ on her phone’s audio playback function.
“What kind of idiot puts that sort of thing in writing? Do you have any idea what would happen if those fools on the island got a hold of something like this? And on Ministry letterhead? Really! …Honestly, McCutcheon, if you hadn’t picked up the bar tabs for half of your constituents, I don’t think you would ever have been elected. We’ll talk about this later.”
“Would you like to hear that again, Mr McCutcheon?” Karen offered.
“Wh…what’s the meaning of this? You barge in like this and…and… This is clearly a case of extortion and I won’t stand for it!”
“Extortion implies an unwanted request for payment in exchange for something in return.”
“You have implied a threat!”
“I have asked for nothing, merely shown you a letter and played you a bit of a speech. Nothing more. How you choose to interpret it… Well, that’s up to you, Mr McCutcheon.”
Karen stood to leave.
“Oh, no need to show me out. And you can keep that,” she added, pointing to the letter. “I have other copies.”
With an unnatural, dignified poise, Karen departed, closing the door behind her. The only sounds that followed were that of objects being hurled across McCutcheon’s office, and the clattering of Manolo Blahnik knock-offs on worn, wooden stairs.
Once again in the Victoria sunshine, Karen screamed with excitement, grabbing a passing businessman in a frenzied dance of triumph. She let go of his arm, and continued down the street, leaving him standing there with a confused smile on his face.
* * * *
Marco was a master at extracting sediment cores. He backed the soil sampling rig, which was attached to the back of the truck, up to the edge of the roadbed. No one, not even Frank, would dare to offer to help do this. It wasn’t a difficult manoeuvre—the rig wasn’t particularly large—but Marco was particular in its positioning. He had a sixth sense when it came to drilling. He always knew where the most unstable soil could be found, which meant he was always cautious—a trait desirable in a driller boring a one-hundred-foot deep, six-inch-wide core, in the hope that it would prove that the road would hold the weight of a cement truck.
Marco was only satisfied when the rig was within a few feet of the slope of the mountain, which left the truck blocking the narrow roadway.
“Should I be worrying about this?” Marco yelled to Frank.
“Nah. It doesn’t look like the road’s been used in a while. As long as we get things looking organised for the chopper fly-over later this morning. They don’t want the investors to see a mess.”
“You’ve gotta be—”
