Tiger Men

by Judy Nunn

  Mick stared down at the deeds. For the past four years he’d found it ironical and even vaguely amusing that his daughter was being kept in style by Silas Stanford’s son. And now his daughter was dead and Silas Stanford’s son was buying his silence with a house. Mick remembered how all those years ago Geoffrey Lyttleton had bought his silence with the very house they were standing in. History seems to be repeating itself in so many ways, he thought. But this time things were different. This time things weren’t right. They weren’t right at all. The fingers of his right hand balled into a fist. Stanford will pay for the death of my daughter, he thought murderously. Then he looked at his wife.

  ‘We can’t bring her back, Mick.’ Eileen’s voice was devoid of emotion; she was just stating the facts. ‘We can’t bring her back.’

  The fight suddenly went out of Mick. What’s the use, he thought. He shoved the papers in the pocket of his jacket and looked down at the floor.

  Transaction completed, Reginald left. He had successfully bought off the O’Callaghans. An implicit understanding had been reached between them and upon the parents’ instruction the rest of the family would follow suit.

  The rest of the family, as it turned out, did not include Bernie.

  Bernie called around to Stanford House the following night. It wasn’t even late, barely eight o’clock, but Bernie was already staggering drunk. He’d been drunk for three days, passing out for a few hours and then starting all over again. He hadn’t drawn a sober breath since he’d learnt of his sister’s death.

  ‘You tell Stanford I want to see him, do you hear me? You tell Stanford I’m here and I want to see him.’

  Reginald heard the commotion and opening his upstairs office window he parted the curtains and peered out to see what was going on in the courtyard below. It appeared a drunken oaf had had the audacity to come to the front door and Clive Gillespie, having shepherded the young man from the porch, was now trying to see him off the property.

  ‘You tell Stanford that Bernie O’Callaghan wants to have a word with him,’ the young man persisted, stumbling a little, but holding his ground. ‘You tell him it’s about my sister.’

  Reginald quickly stepped away from the window and let the curtains fall back into place. O’Callaghan’s ramblings were barely coherent at the moment, but God knew what accusations might be hurled for all to hear if the fool caught sight of him. He watched through the slit of the curtain as the action, clearly visible in the courtyard’s lamplight, unfolded below and he listened intently for any giveaway comment that might spew from the mouth of the drunkard. Thankfully the bedrooms and nursery were to the rear of the house and Evelyn was well out of earshot.

  ‘You will leave this property immediately or I shall summon the police.’ Clive Gillespie, a burly man, was not easily intimidated and certainly not by a young ne’er-do-well like this. He could have flattened the chap had he the mind, but that would only have presented further complications. It was better to do things by the book and usher the intruder out into the street. ‘Off with you now.’ He turned Bernie around and with a hefty shove in the back propelled him in the direction of the front gate.

  But Bernie refused to go quietly. He whirled about, pointing an accusing finger at the house – even, it seemed, at the very window where Reginald stood watching. ‘He thinks he can buy us all off,’ he was yelling now, ‘well he can’t, the bastard. You tell him that.’

  ‘Come along.’ Clive decided to apply some force and stepping forward he grabbed Bernie’s wrist, twisted his arm behind his back and started marching him to the front gate. ‘Leave the premises this minute or I’ll have you arrested for trespassing.’

  Bernie realised he was overpowered and gave up the struggle, but he didn’t give up his drunken ranting. ‘You tell Stanford he can’t buy me off like he bought the others,’ he yelled. ‘He’ll never buy me off, you hear me? Never! You tell the bastard that.’

  Then he found himself sprawled face down in Davey Street. He picked himself up and, staggering around the corner into Hampden Road, set off for the Prince of Wales where, every night of the week except Sunday, he propped up the bar.

  Reginald waited a minute or so before venturing downstairs, and he arrived in the hall just as Clive was closing the front door.

  ‘What was that terrible racket about?’ he asked casually. ‘I could hear it from my office window.’

  ‘To tell you the truth, sir, I’ve no idea. It was a young drunken oaf who made no sense at all. He went on about not being “bought off”, or words to that effect.’

  ‘Ah.’ Reginald nodded. ‘A worker disgruntled by a business takeover I suppose.’

  ‘I suppose so, sir. In any event, I thought it best not to disturb you.’

  ‘Very considerate, Clive,’ Reginald made his decision in that very instant. He started back up the stairs. ‘I shall be locked away in my study for the next hour or so. See to it that I remain undisturbed, will you?’

  ‘Of course, sir.’

  Upstairs, Reginald took out the considerable sum of money which he kept in his study safe, together with the pistol that was housed there, and barely five minutes later, he left by the back staircase that led to the tradesmen’s entrance. His departure was unobserved.

  He walked down to Salamanca Place, a rough, tough dockside street where, amongst the warehouses and factories, bars and brothels thrived and drunkenness and lechery was the nightly order of things. He did not look particularly out of place. In his loose woollen coat with its collar turned up and his dark felt hat, he typified those of the upper classes who visited the brothels or gambled at the card games conducted in the back rooms of disreputable hotels. Many a gentlemen chose to ‘slum it’ in such a fashion, and Reginald, like the more experienced of them, carried a pistol in his coat pocket to ward off any pickpocket or cutthroat who might see him as fair game.

  He walked with purpose, not once questioning the drastic course of action upon which he had decided, for it was clear that he had no option. Bernie O’Callaghan’s tirade may have been just so much drunken rambling, but it would not stop at tonight. Bernie would not wake up sober tomorrow, or next week or the week after that. Bernie was a drunk. Left to roam free he would continue to make his accusations and spread his family’s story all over Hobart. The man must be silenced.

  Arriving at the Esplanade, a hotel with a particularly unsavoury reputation, Reginald stepped through the front doors and into the main bar, where he was assailed by the din and the fug of tobacco smoke. The night was not overly warm, but inside the crowded bar the air was fetid and the smell of stale beer mingled with the stench of urine. The sawdust that was laid out on the floor to soak up the spillage from beer glasses and bladders alike was not changed often enough.

  He edged his way through the crowd, past a couple fornicating against the wall, past a man urinating and past two louts about to embark upon a brawl. If a fight did break out, they would be evicted into the street, for fighting was not allowed in the bar. Reaching the door at the far end, Reginald opened it and stepped through to the rooms out the back.

  A card game was in progress, but nobody looked up as he walked through the back room to another door that led to another smaller back room. There were several back rooms at the Esplanade, rented out for sundry purposes about which the hotel did not enquire. The larger rooms upstairs also did a lively trade, the working girls paying the barman for the use of the palliasses that were laid out side by side, a number to each room so that several whores could accommodate their clients at the same time.

  Reginald tapped on the door to the smaller back room, but there was no answer and, glancing at the card players, he saw that the man he sought was there.

  The man had seen him too. Alf had not once looked up from his cards, but Reginald had been in his peripheral vision from the moment he’d entered from the bar: Alf always sat to one side with a clear view of the room. He glanced up now and gave a surreptitious nod that clearly signalled ‘go ahead’.


  Reginald returned the nod and, opening the unlocked door, he entered the realm of Alf Jordan. He closed the door behind him and sat in the chair beside the small desk as if awaiting a business appointment, which of course he was. Tiny though the room might be, housing no more than the desk, two chairs and a palliasse at the far end, it was more than Alf Jordan’s living quarters, it was his office.

  Twenty-five-year-old Alf had inherited his father’s business. Or rather he’d inherited his father’s reputation as a reliable man for hire. Charlie Jordan had worked out of Wapping where the Jordan family had lived for three generations, and he’d risen from the ranks of thuggery to become an expert at his trade. Unfortunately, Charlie had been killed in a pub brawl six years previously, an unexpected end for a man as canny as he was. Meanwhile, his nineteen-year-old son, by then fully trained in his father’s skills, had taken up the mantle. Charlie would have been proud, the family agreed. Later in the year of Charlie’s death, the great fire had swept Wapping, destroying tenements and shanties alike, and the extended Jordan family, who numbered in their dozens, had left the inner city to settle in the suburbs like so many others. Alf hadn’t. Alf had moved across the bay to Salamanca Place and into his little back room at the Esplanade Hotel where it was business as usual.

  Reginald didn’t have long to wait. Alf Jordan knew better than to keep a valuable client hanging around in a place where he didn’t want to be seen. Within only minutes the door opened and he stepped into the room.

  He was a strongly-built young man, as his trade required, thick-set and well-muscled, but not clumsily so, and he moved with a certain grace born of the need on occasions for stealth.

  He closed the door and crossed to sit behind the desk before he spoke.

  ‘Good evening, sir.’ It was a voice of the streets, rough and uneducated, but the tone was respectful. ‘How can I be of service?’ Alf knew Reginald Stanford of course, he’d done several jobs for the man in the past, but a client’s name never passed his lips. To Alf a client was always ‘sir’, so that it was clear he understood the need for anonymity.

  ‘Do you know a Bernie O’Callaghan?’

  Alf nodded. He knew every man who worked the docks. ‘Irishman,’ he said, ‘comes in here for a card game now and then, drinks mostly at the Prince of Wales.’ Odd choice of target, Alf thought. The three previous jobs he’d done for Stanford had involved two debt collections and a city councillor who’d been proving troublesome with a building project. Why Bernie? he wondered. Bernie was a drunk. Bernie had nothing.

  ‘I want O’Callaghan to meet with an accident.’

  ‘Right.’ Must be a personal grudge, Alf thought. Stanford’s jobs had never required violence: intimidation had always sufficed. ‘What sort of accident?’ he asked.

  ‘A permanent one.’

  ‘I see.’ Having expected nothing more than a good walloping, Alf was certainly surprised, but he didn’t allow it to show. ‘Permanent accidents are expensive,’ he said.

  ‘I’m fully aware of that,’ Reginald replied tartly and, taking an envelope from his coat pocket, he put it on the desk. ‘One hundred pounds up front and another one hundred upon completion.’

  ‘Agreed,’ Alf said. More than generous, he thought. He would have taken on the job for a hundred all up. Hell, for an easy mark like Bernie he’d have accepted fifty. ‘When do you want it done?’

  ‘Immediately. Tonight if possible.’

  ‘Right you are then.’ For two hundred quid anything was possible.

  ‘It is absolutely imperative,’ Reginald said, ‘that the event appear an accident – you do understand that, don’t you, Mr Jordan? There must be no suspicion of foul play, none whatsoever.’

  ‘Oh yes, I understand that, sir. Rest assured I do. You can rely on me.’

  A half an hour later, having checked that Bernie O’Callaghan was indeed ensconced in his customary spot at the bar of the Prince of Wales Hotel, Alf set up his vigil outside. Merging into the shadows of Kelly Street, he waited. Alf was accustomed to waiting all night if need be, and as he waited he wondered what a harmless drunk like young Bernie could possibly have done to offend a man like Reginald Stanford. Ah well, hardly his place to question a client’s motives. As his father had always said, ‘Take the money, do the job and never ask why.’

  It was just before ten, and he’d been there less than half an hour when Bernie staggered out from the bar. This’ll be an easy job all right, he thought, particularly given the condition of his target.

  Bernie had actually come outside to vomit. The barman had suggested he do so in no uncertain terms. ‘Don’t puke in here, Bernie,’ Stan had said, ‘get outside for God’s sake.’ Stan was sick of cleaning up Bernie’s spew.

  Grasping hold of a window ledge to steady himself, Bernie heaved his guts out onto the pavement. He felt quite a deal better when he’d finished and, wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve, he was wondering whether he’d return to the bar or head for home when a friendly hand clapped him on the shoulder.

  ‘Hello, Bernie,’ a voice said and Bernie peered into a face he knew. Alf Jordan – he’d played cards with Alf a number of times, Alf was a good bloke.

  ‘Want to come down to the Esplanade?’ Alf put a comradely arm around Bernie, shepherding him away from the spill of light that came through the hotel’s windows. ‘There’s a poker game on.’

  Bernie gave a lopsided grin. ‘I reckon I’m a bit far gone for cards, mate.’

  ‘Why don’t you join us for a drink then?’ Alf kept walking him on down Kelly Street towards the cut and the steps that led to Salamanca Place. ‘And maybe a bit of a tickle with one of the girls. What do you say?’

  ‘Yeah, why not?’ Bernie said. I could do with some company, he thought, although he wasn’t sure if he was up for one of the girls. In fact he might even have another spew coming on.

  They reached Kelly’s Steps. The cut was narrow and dimly lit and the stone steps were steep. Alf glanced around. There was no-one in sight: the conditions were perfect.

  They’d just started down the first of the two flights of steps when Bernie felt himself trip. He didn’t know what had tripped him, but suddenly there he was hurtling head first down Kelly’s Steps. He ended in a heap on the central landing and sat up, shaking his head groggily and puking all over the place, wondering what the hell had happened.

  Alf joined him to kneel at his side. ‘You all right, Bernie? That was a nasty fall.’ It was the sort of fall that would have knocked most people out, as had been Alf’s intention, but Bernie had bounced around like a rag doll, inviolable as drunks so often were. Ah well, Alf thought, no matter.

  ‘Yeah, I’m fine, thanks mate,’ Bernie said and, wiping the vomit from his mouth with his shirt sleeve, he started to struggle to his feet.

  But he never got there. An arm locked about his head, a hand gripped his jaw, and the crack of Bernie’s neck as it broke was audible. There was no-one around to hear it though, no-one except Alf.

  Picking Bernie up by the belt of his trousers, Alf hurled his body down the second flight of steps like a sack of wheat, watching as it tumbled to the bottom. Then he briefly surveyed the scene. It was a perfect drunkard’s death. The man had stopped on the landing to puke and had fallen down the steps, breaking his neck in the process. No-one could construe it as anything other than an accident.

  Alf walked back up the steps to Kelly Street and, circling around via Montpellier Retreat, he returned to Salamanca Place and the Esplanade Hotel. The entire exercise had taken less than an hour.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Mick hoped that Col would come home. He’d not heard from his son for over a year, but he hoped with all his heart that Col, upon learning of the deaths of his sister and his young brother would return to Hobart, for Col was perhaps the one person in the world who could have eased the terrible sense of loss.

  He’d posted his letter with its dreadful news to the Kalgoorlie post office box number he’d had for the past two
years, assuming that if Col had moved on from the goldfields he would have informed the family. And in writing to the son he adored, Mick had poured out his grief. He’d told the lie that Shauna had died of a ruptured appendix certainly – it was the story he and Eileen and Mara had agreed to maintain even within the family circle – but everything else had been honest and heartfelt. Shauna’s death had come as the most shocking blow to them all, he’d written, and with Bernie’s drunken accident being only days later, the two had of course been inextricably linked.

  ‘Bernie’s been a lost man for a long time, Col, Mick had written, and Shauna’s death pushed him over the edge. You know how close they were. He drank himself into a state of oblivion. It was the sort of stupid, meaningless accident that’s been waiting to happen for years I have to say, but that doesn’t make it any easier to bear. Shauna and Bernie, both dead, just like that. Young lives snuffed out like candles. God is so cruel. The whole family is bereft as you can well imagine. I wish you were here, son. I really wish you were here.

  Mick had stopped short of begging, but his meaning had been implicit, he was clearly saying ‘come home’.

  Col didn’t come home, but he did the next best thing. He wrote a lengthy letter, as heartfelt as his father’s, expressing his shock and sorrow upon hearing the news. Then he went on to explain why he couldn’t come back to Hobart, at least not just yet.

  I’m truly sorry for being so remiss with my letters, Da, particularly as I have had news of my own to impart for some time, news of the utmost importance. Perhaps now though, with the tragic loss of our darlings, the timing may be right after all. Perhaps it may be of some comfort for you and Ma to know that the O’Callaghan family has acquired a new member. Do you recall I mentioned in my last letter that I was contemplating marriage to a girl named Fiona? Well we didn’t get around to it, or we haven’t yet – marriage doesn’t seem of great importance here on the goldfields – but Fiona gave birth towards the end of last year. I have a son. His name is Oscar.