The Long Shadow by Anne Buist

Author:Anne Buist
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Text Publishing Company
Published: 2020-03-11T00:00:00+00:00

25

It was the next night before I had a chance to talk to Dean.

He was late, the day had dragged and the heat had left me irritable. I was making a patchwork quilt for Grace’s fete, and when I realised I’d sewed the squares in the wrong order I snapped at Noah, and watched his wide eyes fill with tears. My mother rang with the usual litany of medical complaints and I snapped at her too.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I’m missing Melbourne, that’s all.’

‘I know you have more important things in your life than us.’ Mum couldn’t help herself.

Noah was asleep by the time Dean drove in, the sun lighting the horizon in shades of gold. The circling bird I had seen on previous evenings was joined by its mate. I was thinking how beautiful their graceful silhouettes were against the sunset, then only a minute later I heard the wild dogs start their barking, and longed to be home with my family and friends. Even Mum.

‘Well. That was fun.’ Dean sat down and poured us a glass of wine each.

‘The board meeting?’

Dean nodded. ‘That bunch are like the Addams Family. With Grace Barclay as Morticia and your Saint Christopher as Gomez.’

‘Was Athol Broadbent there? He does look a bit like Lurch,’ I said. The wine had relaxed me.

‘Yeah, Athol was on song. A lot of head-shaking and groaning about how much better things were in the good old days, if things worked in 1950 they still should now…Saint Christopher doesn’t agree, so there was plenty of huffing and puffing about it.’ Dean topped up his glass and put the bottle back in the fridge.

‘Do you have a sense of where the financial problem is?’

‘The hospital has a culture of corruption. The issue is how much is just bad management, and how much is crooked.’

‘I heard the caterer was sacked.’

‘Mmm-hmmm. Equal parts incompetence and greed there. She took off pretty much because I was asking questions. The rot with the union…that might go a good deal deeper.’

‘Kickbacks? From the hospital?’

‘Almost certainly. The lack of transparency…If there’s something I can’t see after spending seven weeks in the guts of the operation, that’s a problem in itself. I’ve found some discrepancies and now I’m going back through all the records as far back as I can. It’s slow and tedious because the records are…well, a lot are actually missing, others incomplete.’

‘Whose responsibility is it?’

‘The buck rests with the Board. They should all have a grip on the financials.’ Dean shrugged. ‘Trouble is, I don’t know what I’m dealing with; it’s not purely the financials, it’s about due process.’

‘So, who does know what’s going on?’

Dean watched me. ‘Your Saint Christopher maybe.’

I thought about his Nissan; the feeling of being followed. ‘Why did you say he was Gomez? Because he’s greasing up to Grace?’

We watched a flock of galahs screeching as they flew over the clump of trees by the creek while Dean thought about his answer. ‘He certainly makes sure he keeps on her good side—he might be trying to blindside her.

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