My house smelled of damp. At least it didn’t smell of cat. I was in a foul mood. I cleaned the cut, put a dressing on it and went to bed. I was almost asleep when the thought came. Two honks probably meant trouble at the front, three meant the back. Smarter than me. I shouldn’t have looked at the street. As soon as I heard the noise, I should have gone straight in.
11
As it happened, I knew Kevin O’Fearna’s solicitor slightly. Brian Dolan was one of the old school of city lawyers, slightly tarnished by long association with politicians but never mentioned in an enquiry, never newsworthy. I phoned him and confirmed that O’Fear was still on remand.
‘When does his case come up?’ I asked.
‘The police are having trouble with the witnesses. What’s your interest, Mr Hardy?’
Dolan was a man you instinctively lied to. ‘A non-legal matter. Just out of curiosity, what would his bail be?’
‘It’s ten thousand dollars, which is a bloody scandal.’
I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach. ‘Wouldn’t his mates be able to put that up?’
‘Kevin doesn’t exactly have any mates just now.’
O’Fear had once told me that only lawyers and priests called him Kevin. I hoped I wouldn’t be talking to any priests. I cut off Dolan’s next question, thanked him and hung up. A call to Long Bay got me a tedious wait on the line and then a 10.45 a.m. visiting slot. I told them I was working for Cy Sackville, which was a lie, but they’re used to lies at Long Bay.
Visiting a prisoner is taking a punt. He can always change his mind and refuse to see you, which is his right. It’s not a bad trick for a bored inmate to play on an outsider. Luckily, O’Fear wasn’t much given to boredom. He was a regular gaolhouse lawyer by all accounts and, when he wasn’t giving advice, he was probably gambling, or talking or singing. I turned off Anzac Parade, parked in a side street and walked back. It was a sunny morning with a light breeze, but neither that nor the flower beds beside the long, grey concrete ramp to the barrier could make the place cheerful. The guy in the glasshouse checked me over and waved me through to the entrance. I filled in my slip, writing clumsily with the bandaged hand, gave it to one of the beefy Ulstermen who run the place, and sat down on the wooden bench next to the rubber tree plant and the other visitors.
Over the years I’ve visited a good many men in Long Bay. Those visits tend to blur into one mostly depressing memory. Much sharper is the recollection of the time I spent here on remand myself. The second case I handled as a private detective involved a runaway girl. I found the girl and I also found that her father had been committing incest with her since she was ten. I wasn’t tactful or understanding. I put the father in hospital and the girl and the mother told the police that I had assaulted and robbed him. I was new at the game and out of my territory in Parramatta. I was wary of the cops, and my lawyer knew less law than I did. I was only at the Bay for ten days, but that was bad enough. In gaol you get more insults and abuse in a day than in ten years on the outside. Since then, they tell me, it’s got worse. If the screws have become a bit more careful in dealing out abuse, the crims have got more reckless. In my time sex was mostly in the prisoners’ heads; now it’s on the floor and in the toilets and no pleases and thank yous.
When you visit a convicted prisoner you have to submit to a thorough search and deposit most of your belongings in a locker. Visitors to people on remand get a less rigorous going-over. Still, the guard prodded at my bandage and snarled back at me when I swore. He let me into the visiting room and told me to sit and wait.
‘How long?’ I said.
‘Long as it takes,’ the guard said. From the look on his hard, pale face, the only thing that’d make him smile would be the sound of bone breaking.
I took a deep breath and sat in the chair facing the door. It was a small room with lino tiles on the floor and a dusty window set too high up to reach. The pale yellow light indicated reinforced glass. The table and two chairs were bolted to the floor. The ashtray was plastic and deeply scarred by crushed-out butts. I recalled that I crushed out a few hundred in my ten days.
Prison air has a nasty smell; it feels bad for your lungs. Maybe that’s why everyone smokes so much-the smoke can’t be worse for you than the air.
The door opened and O’Fear came in. He stopped for dramatic effect and to make a pretence of tipping the guard. He stood about five foot eight and had a wrestler’s build-huge shoulders and a barrel chest. His waistline expanded and contracted according to his circumstances. Just now, he was trim.
‘Cliff, boy,’ he bellowed. ‘Long time no seizure.’ He roared with laughter at his own joke and rushed across towards me. I stood and he put a bear hug on me. It was eleven o’clock in the morning and he was in prison, but he still smelled of whisky.
‘Hello, O’Fear. How are they keeping you?’
He gave my joke a smaller laugh and reached for my hand. I pulled it away and showed him the dressing.
“What’ve you been doing to yourself, Cliff?’
‘Just a scratch.’
‘It’ll play hell with your sex life.’ He laughed again and took the other chair. He looked the picture of well-being; his red hair was streaked with grey but thick; his skin was lightly tanned and clear, and his eyes and teeth shone. He looked as if he’d been spending time at a flash health farm. ‘There’s no one I’d rather see, Cliff, ‘cept me dear mother, and she passed away ten year ago, God rest her soul.’
‘Cut it out, O’Fear,’ I said. ‘Could we have a small ban on the phoney Irish stuff?’
‘You’re in a bad mood, I see. How Irish are yez again? I forget.’
‘Two grandmothers. They gave their husbands hell.’
‘Ah yes, they would. Irishwomen are the devil-they either love God or themselves and no man at all.’ He examined his hands, which were small and clean. It was a long time since O’Fear had pushed a wheelbarrow. When he spoke again, it was in ordinary, inner-Sydney Australian. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘How d’you like it here?’
‘It’s a shit hole. The ignorance in here is shocking.’
‘What’re your chances?’
‘It’s hard to say. It’s a conspiracy, of course. That’s what the police are best at. You haven’t come here to discuss my case, Hardy, or to have me sing you a song. What’s on your mind?’
‘Barnes Todd.’
‘Ah. Poor man.’
I watched his reaction very closely, but O’Fear was an experienced performer and I couldn’t read anything in his clear blue eyes or the set of his curling Irish mouth. ‘I’m enquiring into his death.’
‘On whose behalf? The widow’s?’
I nodded. This was a tricky course to steer. I wanted O’Fear to do the talking, to learn as much as I could from him before having to offer him anything in return. But O’Fear knew when to talk and when to shut up. He said nothing.
‘I understand you might have some information tor me.’
He let a bit of the Irish lilt back into his voice. ‘Now, how would you be reachin’ an understandin’ like that?’
‘I thought we were going to do without the blarney?’
‘Okay.’ That was the first sign I had, that quick compliance. He wanted out. I had to follow up the advantage.
‘How well did you know Todd?’
‘If I tell you that, will you tell me how my name came up?’
The points on that exchange would probably go to him, but I didn’t have much choice. ‘Yes.’
‘I knew Barnes a long time. More than thirty years. I met him in Korea and I worked for him at various times-borrowed money, this and that.’