Snatched! (Foley & Rose Book 6) by Gary Gregor

Author:Gary Gregor [Gregor, Gary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gumshoe - A Next Chapter Imprint
Published: 2020-08-10T22:00:00+00:00

21

Half way up the six steps leading to the entrance foyer of the Alice Springs police station, Superintendent Cameron, ‘Yap Yap’, Barker stood on the wide landing, waiting for the impatient throng of media personnel to quieten sufficiently for him to speak. Addressing the various arms of the media was a task he had carried out numerous times but had never become comfortable with. It was the jostling and jockeying for position, and the cacophonous jumble of voices as questions were hurled at him from all directions of the media scrum that rankled him: and this all before his press conference had even begun.

The crowd of journalists completely blocked the footpath in front of the headquarters building, even spilling over the gutter onto the verge of the street. The afternoon sun beat down relentlessly upon the attending news-hounds, many of them dabbing at their faces with paper tissues and some, those unfortunate enough not to have tissues at hand, wiped their foreheads with their shirt sleeves. It was a strategic move on Barker’s part; perhaps the burning sun would see the mob keen to see the press conference over and they could seek shelter elsewhere, away from the oppressive heat.

This was a big story. Without question the biggest Barker had been involved in in his career to date. And, when big stories came along, the media behaved like a wolf-pack with the scent of blood in their nostrils. Not only did Barker find it annoying, he found the push-and-shove behavior to be embarrassingly un-Australian; akin to the intrusive, disrespectful behavior often displayed by representatives of the international paparazzi.

As he waited, his eyes roved across the many faces, all of which were focused on him. Some he knew better than others and some he had never seen before. There were media representatives present, not just from the various Northern Territory television, radio and print, arms of the media, but from all over the country; and they were all baying for information.

On Barker’s left, and one step behind, the Minister for Education in the Northern Territory, Peter Cornwell stood, trying his very best to appear both as important and ministerial as he believed the status of his position in the government deserved. However, while outwardly displaying the countenance and general appearance his portfolio required, inwardly he was fuming. With a bright red handkerchief, he pulled from his pocket, he constantly dabbed at perspiration running down his fat, flushed cheeks.

He should be on a plane, thirty thousand feet above the Pacific Ocean, heading for Fiji and day-dreaming of the next few days filled with copious quantities of good red wine and pretty, dark-skinned island girls with sweet scented bougainvillea flowers in their hair.

Had he been on the plane, it would not have been Cornwell’s first tax-payer funded trip to the tiny island nation. He knew very early in his political career that politics was not a career that offered longevity; at least not for him. What he did know was that, with the

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