Torn Apart

I thought about Patrick's remark: I have a thought or two. 'Is there enough money in it for someone to get killed for doing the wrong thing?'

'You mean ripping off a consignment?'

'Something like that, or horning in on an established market.'

'I don't think it's organised enough for that. More a matter of people seeing an opportunity and grabbing it, but I could ask around. Who's got the stuff we're talking about now?'

'Dunno. Police or Customs.'

'It'll filter through, then, at least some of it. I'll keep an eye out.'

I thanked him and had got up to leave when he pushed me down and pointed to the suture scar just showing above the top button of my shirt.

'That what I think it is?'

I nodded. 'Bypass.'

'What did I tell you when I saw you tucking into steak and chips on that movie set?'

'The catering was too flash to resist.'

'Things've changed. It's pies and sausage rolls now, if you're lucky. Doesn't bother me of course. Well, see you, Cliff. Glad you're still in the land of the living, even though you don't deserve to be.'

Toby is a vegetarian. He loped away and I watched him disappear into the gathering gloom. I was hearing that sort of news too much lately from people in various professions- restricted services, belt tightening.

As I got up and stretched, joints cracking, two men came slouching towards me. One was about my height and build, the other shorter and wider. They were both young and carrying stubbies.

'Hey, mate, got a spare smoke?' the taller one said.

'No, sorry.'

Shorty said, 'Got a light?'

'Why would I have a light if I haven't got a cigarette?'

'You're a smartarse,' Shorty said.

'And you're a nuisance. Go away.'

The taller one said, 'I bet he's got a wallet.'

'Go away before you get hurt.'

He reached out and grabbed the lapel of my jacket. Bad move. Two free hands will usually beat none. I hit him hard over the heart. He dropped to his knees and vomited. The other man swung at my head with his bottle. Another mistake-too small a target and a head can duck. Go for the body first. I gave him a right rip to the ribs and when he sagged I lifted my knee and caught him under the chin. He collapsed and his bottle hit the graffiti-covered brick wall and smashed.

I bent down, lifted him, and propped him against the wall under a peace sign. 'Look after your mate. He's not feeling well.'

I walked away. The confrontation had taken a matter of seconds and the few other people in the park were too far away to see what happened.

I drove home. Sheila's VW was parked across from my house. She got out as I arrived; we embraced in the middle of the street, and she stepped back sniffing.

'What?' I said.

'Funny smell.'

We went into the house and when we were under the light she pointed to my pants below the knee. 'Ugh, you've got chuck all over you.'

I'd been massaging a bruised knuckle. She noticed. She put down her bag with a thump. 'What happened, Cliff?'

'Couple of wannabe muggers.'

'Did they hurt you? No, you hurt them, didn't you?'

'They were young and inexperienced and probably drunk. It's nothing to be proud of. Let me get cleaned up. Did I say I was glad to see you?'

'No, but you will be. I've pulled myself together and I'm ready to tell you everything I can about Paddy and to show you a few things as well.'

I changed my clothes and we sent out for Vietnamese food. Sheila was animated, almost hectic, high on the prospect of the film and fascinated by the character she was playing. Her research had gone well and reports from the producer, getting the money together, and the director, scouting locations, were good. She drank a few glasses of wine and hoed into the fish and vegetables but scarcely touched the rice. I'd never mastered chopsticks; Sheila was adept. She tried to instruct me as others had done but I was hopeless. The sore hand didn't help.

'You must really have belted him,' she said. 'You were a boxer like Paddy, weren't you?'

I was glad we'd reached the subject. 'He was a pro, I was an amateur.'

'Mr Modest.' She got up, fetched her bag and sat on the couch. 'Come over here.'

I drained my glass and went. The extra weight in her bag turned out to be a hefty photograph album. She opened it over our close-together knees. Sheila was a keen photographer and a good one. She'd kept an extensive photographic record of her tortured relationship and marriage to Patrick Malloy from the days of their meeting at a party to the final split-a shot of Patrick storming off towards his car. Good times and bad times; smiles and tears; presents and the aftermath of rows-smashed glasses, scattered books, broken furniture.

'You can see how it was,' she said. 'We'd break up, go off with someone else and get back together again. Look, here's Seamus Cummings and here's one of the women Paddy was fucking, one of many. I took that without her knowing, jealous as hell.'

The photographs were more or less in chronological order and carried captions: 'Paddy beating me at pool', 'Our wedding', 'Us at Kakadu', etc.

Sheila leaned towards me. 'I bet you looked exactly like him at the same age. What d'you think?'

'Pretty much. Just a bit more handsome.'

'Huh. Just as cocksure, if you know what I mean.'

There were several photos of Patrick in military uniform looking pleased with himself, and one near the end of the collection of him in what looked like a bushman's outfit. Not exactly fatigues, more the movie version of fatigues. He'd put on weight and grown a bristly moustache and didn't look much like me at all.

'What's this?' I said. 'I never looked like that.'

'That's his African outfit.'

'I thought you'd broken up permanently by then.'

'We had, but he turned up. He was always turning up out of the blue and causing trouble.'

'What was the name of that group? Did he ever tell you? He shouldn't have, but since he was showing off…'

'He was drunk and unhappy. He didn't care what he said. He did mention a name, but I forget-something Greek. Hercules, Parthenon.. .'

'Well, he never made it to Africa.'

'Why d'you say that?'

'He told me he quit the mercenary mob in England when he learned what they were headed for. Deserted, he said.'

'That's not true. He went to Africa, all right. Look.'

She pulled a postcard from its plastic sleeve and handed it to me. It showed a bush village with characteristic African flattop trees in the background. The message read: 'Shillelagh, glad you're not here. Love, Paddy.' The card was postmarked Luanda, Republic of Angola.

20

Sheila went off to Melbourne to do more research for her part, this time to talk to people with information about the female role in the gang wars. She said a member of the production team was going with her, a karate expert.

'He'd better be an expert in a bit more than that.'

'Like what?'

'Australian football, dining in Carlton, catching trams, coats and scarves…'

'I gather you don't like Melbourne.'

'Nothing good ever happened to me there. You'll be right. Have fun-not too much.'

'What're you going to do?'

'The usual. Talk to people who know things I need to know.'

A web search for Australian mercenary soldiers turned up only one useful item-a book entitled Diggers for Hire by John

Casey, published by Partisan Press in 2007. Thanks to the software loaded by Lily and transferred to my new computer, I had Sydney University's Fisher Library catalogue online and found that the book was in the research section. I walked to the university past all the restoration and enhancement work being done on Glebe Point Road to run into major work going on inside the campus. Holes in the ground, cranes, noise-not exactly the dreaming spires. I threaded my way through detours and diversions to the library, made an inquiry and was directed to the right section. A ticket that allows you to borrow costs a fortune, but there's nothing to stop you reading inside the place. The book was mercifully slim and I sat down with it and a notebook. I haven't had much to do with university libraries since my less than successful student days when I was supposed to be studying law but was more interested in other things.