I thought. Where the kids are bright and helpful instead of drug-dulled and suspicious? Where the sun in the morning looks fresh and clean? Where the people who haven’t got money on their minds aren’t likely to last for long? I still didn’t know. If I didn’t decide soon, the opportunity would evaporate, and maybe that would be the best thing. I kissed goodbye for now to my personal shot at paradise, drove away and stopped near an all-night chemist with an orange phone. There was a bottle shop a little further along and I bought a six-pack of Swan Light so that I could get a fistful of change and have something to do with my hands when I phoned Felicia Todd in Thirroul.
She answered, sounding relaxed and pleased to hear from me. I told her I’d delivered the paintings and that I had eliminated the Korean connection.
‘That’s a relief,’ she said. ‘And what has this Irishman told you?’
‘It’d take too long to go into but I’ll fill you in when I can. In the meantime, do you know anything about a set of photographs Barnes took? A special set, relating to his business?’ As soon as the words were out I realised that I could be on tricky ground, if what Piers Lang had said was true.
Felicia’s reply came slowly. ‘No. The only photographs I know about are those you delivered to Piers Lang.’
‘Had you looked through them? Were they all…?’
‘Yes. All subjects, if you know what that means. I’ve almost finished classifying them and relating them to the paintings. They’re not at all to do with trucks or storage or bloody security.’
‘What about a big plastic garbage bag? Heavy.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Did you see Barnes with such a thing? Hiding it, maybe, or doing something unusual?’
‘I only ever saw him put garbage bags out the front of the house. Cliff, what is this?’
‘Evidence. Never mind.’
‘When will I see you?’
‘When are you coming back?’
‘I’m not sure.’
That was pretty clear. She was leaving it to me. Her tone was welcoming, though, and I felt encouraged. ‘I’ll keep in touch and get back as soon as I can.’
‘Good. I hope that’s soon. Deborah’s staying the night and she’s brought her dog along. With the stabbing on top of the housebreaking, I’m not feeling as confident as I made out.’
I rang off after telling her I thought it would be sorted out soon, which was more optimistic than truthful. But I was intrigued, which is a way of being optimistic.
There’s a bolt on the inside of the front door of my house. It had been thrown and my key wouldn’t open the door.
‘Who?’ The voice was soft, immediately behind the door.
‘Hardy, who else? O’Fear?’
The bolt was drawn and the door opened quietly. O’Fear eased himself out and beckoned for me to move into the shadow at the front of the house, where the wistaria hangs down from the top balcony. He was white-faced, moving stiffly and carrying a gun.
‘What’s happened to you?’
‘To me? Nothing. But this idiot followed my cab from Botany to your place. I spotted him in the first half mile. He came in with a shooter and I had to tap him on the head. I hurt my side a bit doin’ it.’
‘What idiot?’
‘He’s inside. A young feller, maybe about thirty, with a twelve-year-old brain.’
‘Unconscious?’
‘He was. He’ll be comin’ out of it soon. I can hit so as to knock you out for a precise time, y’see. This was a half-hour tap at the most. I allowed for his size.’
As always with O’Fear, it was difficult to tell truth from bullshit, but there was no doubt that he was an expert in violence. My first thought was that we had a hostage.
‘I was thinkin’ you might make a few private enquiries of him,’ O’Fear said, ‘although he looks like a tough little nut. Perhaps I should do it meself. I’m rather tirin’ of these fellers havin’ a go at me.’
‘That’s brilliant. What’re we going to do? Torture him?’
‘I wasn’t thinkin’ of bribing him with my share of your ill-gotten gains, I can tell you that!’
‘Perhaps it’s to do with your other trouble?’
O’Fear shook his head. ‘That hasn’t the mileage in it. It’s not a shootin’ matter at all. No, it’s to do with Todd all right. Look, Cliff, he’ll be stirrin’. I put him in your little falling-down bathroom…’
From the back of the house came the sound of glass breaking.
O’Fear waved the gun. ‘Christ, he’ll be out and away.’
I shattered the existing record for getting from my front door into my car. I drove to the end of the street, turned through the new block of flats and stopped on the rise. If he went over the back fence he had to come out down the street from where I was. It would take him a few minutes to negotiate the fences and gardens, but he would come. There was no other way.
I was right. He dropped over a fence onto the pavement about the same time as a car drove up the street in my direction. He was a small man, dressed in dark clothes but with a white stripe on his jacket sleeves. He shrank back against the fence as the car went past. Then he ran.
I drifted down the street, keeping well back and not showing any lights. He rounded the corner into Glebe Point Road and sprinted down the hill towards the water. I saw him take the turn into the avenue beside the park before I put my lights on and followed. I picked him up under the light where the street bends. He tore open the door of a car, gunned the motor and took off. I kept as far behind as I could, delaying on the turns and hugging the kerb until he was back on the main road. I relaxed a little then, allowed a car to pass me to serve as cover and tried to pick out something distinctive about the car I was following. There was nothing distinctive, no broken tail light or racing stripe, but the number plate was KNM 223.
He drove badly. His reactions were slow and he was indecisive; probably the results of O’Fear’s gentle tap. But he managed to get into King Street and turn off towards Erskineville. This was harder for me-narrow streets, some of them one-way, relatively unknown territory. He threaded through between the factories and terrace houses and dark, empty looking lots, still driving erratically, clipping the footpath more than once. His right indicator flashed and he turned sharply into a wide concrete driveway. A man stepped out of a lighted booth, consulted something the driver showed him, and waved the car ahead. A heavy metal gate slid open, and KMN 223 was home at last.
I pulled in to the kerb and killed my lights. It was a long, narrow street, poorly lit. The side I was parked on was mostly taken up by the backs of factories. Opposite me and a bit further on, the metal gate was set in a high brick fence. Higher than that of Brown amp; Brown, almost prison-like. I felt in the shelf under the dashboard and located the half bottle of rum I keep there for emergencies. Emergencies are fairly few and the bottle was almost full. I took a swig and looked at the brick fence. The guy in the glass booth was bent over, reading or eating or playing with himself. Anyway, he wasn’t looking at me. I took another drink and squinted until I shut
out the peripheral light and could read the words painted on the gate: ATHENA SECURITY PTY LTD.
I let out a rummy breath in a low whistle. Athena was a big security firm, comparatively new. It advertised extensively and aggressively and boasted that it had the latest technology in all departments of the game. I get a lot of the security business propaganda in the mail- brochures, magazines, sales pitches-and Athena had loomed large in the material in recent times. It’s a very competitive field. I glance at the stuff, some of it I file, most of it I throw away, but one unusual fact about Athena had stuck in my mind-the head of the company was a woman.
18
I drove around the Athena establishment, taking in the high walls, signs of electronic equipment and the glow that suggested spotlights within. The wall was lower along one side which occupied a section of a neater residential street. It was almost as if Athena didn’t want to look too institutional among the tidied-up terraces and wide bungalows. Image is everything, or nearly everything. Still, it wasn’t the sort of place you storm with a Smith amp; Wesson. 38 shouting: ‘Freeze! Nobody moves until I get some answers to these questions.’