O'Fear

by Peter Corris

  ‘How’re things with Felicia?’ Hickie asked. He rubbed his shoulder, which must have been sore from our hard bump.

  ‘She’s still at the coast. I haven’t got any good news for her.’ I didn’t tell him about the new slant I had got on Todd from Piers Lang and Marshall Brown, but I did tell him about the attack on O’Fear, and how I had established the connection to Athena Security.

  ‘Well, I can see how Eleni Marinos’ nose would be out of joint,’ Hickie said. ‘Barnes had really knocked her back. But to kill him?’ He shook his head.

  ‘Must be more to it than that,’ I said. ‘I’ve got a terrible feeling that O’Fear is on to something and going it alone. I admit I don’t know what to do about Athena, but I doubt he has any better ideas.’

  ‘I could look through the correspondence—see if I can come up with something.’

  ‘That’d be good. Thanks.’ As he spoke I realised that a question had been nagging at me since early in the case. After the break-ins at Coogee and Thirroul, why hadn’t the searchers done the obvious thing and looked through Michael Hickie’s files? As I chewed on the thought, Hickie opened the driver’s door of his yellow Datsun 200B. I could see that the door had been panel-beaten and resprayed. I pointed to the new work.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I got rammed a few weeks back. It’s been in the workshop for ages.’

  That figures, I thought. Hickie was thinking too. He got into the car and wound down his window, as if to invite my next question.

  ‘Tell me,’ I said. ‘Who handles the security for your office building?’

  Hickie clicked his tongue. ‘Athena,’ he said.

  19

  My thoughts were uncomfortable. Felicia Todd was involved in a deception about Todd’s creativity. She had scores to settle and there might be justifications for it. But I was worried that she might know something about Barnes’ dealings with Eleni Marinos and Athena, and be holding out on me. It was tricky territory. In my experience, men can talk about their present partner’s ex-partners without distress, but women find it difficult. I don’t know exactly why this is; perhaps because women like to work things through and, by definition, they cannot work through relationships they haven’t been in. I wanted to see Felicia, and advance our budding love affair, if that’s what it was, and this topic wasn’t calculated to help. It was a new slant on conflict of interest.

  I went home and packed a bag, drew out some money and filled the Falcon’s tank. I set off for Thirroul with two guns and not many ideas. In Rockdale I waited at the lights alongside an Athena armoured van. The large driver wore aviator glasses and had silver insignia on the epaulettes of his shirt. He read a copy of Evan Whitton’s Can of Worms while he waited. He chewed gum, too. With operatives like that available, I wondered why they would employ a little runt like the one who had broken my bathroom window. Then I remembered his neat driving the night he had followed me, and his quick recovery from O’Fear’s ‘little tap’. Maybe his gun hadn’t been loaded; maybe he was a master of restraint.

  I got to Thirroul around three. A battered Holden ute was parked in the Todd driveway and a big German shepherd greeted me at the gate.

  ‘Easy,’ I said. ‘Friend of your owner’s friend.’

  The dog barked and Deborah appeared at the door. She was wearing her overalls with the bottoms tucked into football socks above dirty gym boots. ‘It’s all right, Hero,’ she said.

  The dog wagged its eight-pound tail. I patted its head and stepped past.

  ‘Hero?’ I said.

  Deborah nodded. ‘Hero was a woman, didn’t you know that?’

  ‘I forgot. Well, I suppose I should’ve phoned, but …’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘If you think Felicia and me’re having an affair, you’re dumber than you look. Forget it. We’re friends. She’s straight. Got it?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m glad you’re here. Some pretty strange things’re happening. Where is she now?’

  ‘Having a sleep. We talked late and had a few drinks. She’s got no head, poor love. Got up for a while this morning and crashed again. She’s told me a bit about what’s going on.’ She glanced at my bag. ‘See you’ve come to stay.’

  ‘Not if she doesn’t want me to.’

  ‘She will. I want to talk to you. Come around the back.’

  I followed her and Hero around to the back of the house. We went up the steps and took chairs on the deck. The Pacific Ocean foamed quietly on the beach a hundred metres away. I squinted and could see the dark smudges of ships strung out on the horizon. Deborah looked in the same direction.

  ‘Strike’s tying up the port,’ she said. ‘Bludging men’ll be the ruin of this country.’

  ‘You’re not exactly laying bricks yourself at the moment, Deb.’

  The rumble of her laugh was a lot louder than the waves on the beach. ‘I think you might be all right, Chris … or whatever your name is.’

  ‘Cliff,’ I said. ‘My mother wanted Errol as in Flynn, but my father wouldn’t wear it.’

  ‘Thank God for that. Fel’s having serious thoughts about you. She’s guilty, of course, because it’s not long since her husband died.’

  ‘I feel guilty about that, too.’

  ‘You shouldn’t. The man was a shit. I didn’t shed any bloody tears when they hosed him off the highway.’

  I was almost shocked; it was the third bad opinion of Barnes Todd in a row after all the glowing tributes. Deborah’s viewpoint was necessarily slanted, but in the investigative business three sources amounts to confirmation. I tried to keep my voice neutral. ‘Why d’you say that?’

  She pushed back some straggling dark hair. Hero, the dog, watched her every move and looked as if it would jump off the bluff into the sea if Deborah told it to. She smiled down at it and Hero curled into a big relaxed ball. Maybe that was what Deborah liked—attention and obedience. ‘Todd owned this place for years. It was pretty much of a ruin and he only got around to getting it fixed up after he married Fel. I did most of the work on it.’

  Things weather fast on the coast, and I hadn’t noticed that the deck and the sliding doors and the landscaped garden were newish. ‘That’s when you met Fel?’

  ‘Yes. I knew Todd before that. He used to bring women down here.’ She laughed. ‘Well, why not? I would, too. It’s a great place.’

  ‘What’re you getting at, Deborah?’

  ‘He wasn’t faithful to her. He brought a woman down here after he was married. Twice at least. I didn’t give a shit at the time. No business of mine, and I’ve got no faith in heterosexual monogamy. I suppose she’d have done the same after a while. But it cuts me up that she regards him as a saint. She won’t hear a word against him. Started out the other night talking about how nice you were and ended up crying over Todd. Bloody madness. Still, I suppose you’re no prize either.’

  ‘Probably not,’ I said. ‘Look, this isn’t idle curiosity. It could be important. Can you describe the woman?’

  ‘Bottle blonde. Forty or more. A real bitch.’

  ‘Do you know her name?’

  She shook her head. ‘Heard it, but I forget. Foreign.’ She heaved herself up from the deck chair, and the dog rose in a simultaneous motion. ‘Well, three’s a crowd. I’ll take off. Tell her to give me a ring.’

  I stood and had an impulse to shake hands, which I suppressed. ‘Thanks for looking after her.’

  She snapped her fingers, and the dog bounded down the steps. ‘You do the same,’ she said.

  Inside, the house was dark and cool. I put my bag down and went through to the main bedroom. Felicia was lying on the bed in a huddle. She heard me and sat up.

  ‘God, you gave me a fright!’

  ‘Sorry. I should’ve rung but I wanted to see you, not talk to you on the phone.’

  She held out her arms. ‘I’m glad.’

  I went over to the bed and we reached for each other. She pulled
me down and kissed me hard. She was wearing a long red T-shirt and skimpy underpants and her body felt comforting and exciting at the same time. She lifted the shirt and put my hands on her breasts.

  ‘I like that,’ she said. ‘Oh, I like that. I got drunk last night.’

  ‘So I hear.’

  She jerked away. ‘Christ! Deborah!’

  I kissed her. Her breath was a little winey but not unpleasant. I eased her pants down from her full, rounded hips. ‘Don’t worry. She’s gone.’

  ‘Let’s fuck,’ she said.

  20

  I came wide awake with Warren Bradley’s words sounding inside my skull: … Stuff flying everywhere—barrier posts, branches, you know? Door wide open … What sort of stuff? And why had the door been open?

  Felicia sat up beside me. ‘What is it?’

  I didn’t answer. These sorts of insights are fragile things; they can disappear like dreams if you don’t consolidate them quickly. I put my arm around Felicia’s bare shoulders and held her. Our bodies were warm from the bed and the contact. She nuzzled into me, and I stroked her hair while I thought it out. No reason for a door to fly open. The Calais might have been rammed by a heavier vehicle travelling faster, but that wouldn’t do it. What if Barnes had opened the door? And thrown something out?

  ‘What time is it?’ I said.

  Felicity checked her watch. ‘Nearly five-thirty.’

  ‘When does it get light?’

  ‘In about an hour. Why?’

  ‘I have to go looking for something.’

  ‘God, are you always like this in the morning? Up and running this early? I don’t think I could bear it.’

  I laughed and kissed her, but I got out of bed too. ‘No. I can sleep in with the best of them. Want some coffee?’

  ‘Tea,’ she said.

  I got dressed and made the drinks. She was only half awake when I brought it to her, but she made an effort to sit up and drink it. I reminded her about the evidence O’Fear had referred to—a heavy bag—and our search for it in Botany. Then I let her in on my inspiration.

  ‘I suppose it’s possible,’ she said. ‘What could be in the bag?’

  I sipped my coffee. I was drinking it strong and black and it was a bit of a jolt to what had been a very relaxed system. Excitement over the chance of finding the bag made me incautious about the other matter. ‘No idea. Tell me, Fel, what do you know about Barnes and a woman named Eleni Marinos?’

  She spilled half of her tea on the sheet. ‘Shit! Why do you ask me that?’

  ‘Is that a problem for you?’

  ‘Very much so. I don’t want to hear her bloody name, much less talk about her. Is she involved in this?’

  ‘Could be.’

  Her face, which had been sleepy and relaxed, went tight. I could feel waves of hostility coming from her. She mopped vigorously at the wet sheet with her T-shirt which had been lying on the bed. ‘Christ, am I never going to get clear of that woman?’

  Light was showing at the bottom of the half-drawn blind and the birds were starting up in the trees. It should have been a good day for us, but suddenly it wasn’t.

  I touched her shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, love. I should have felt around it a bit more first before opening my big mouth.’

  ‘Bullshit! That’s bullshit! I’m not a child. I can face facts. I bet you’ve been talking to Deborah.’

  ‘Yes, but the name came up in Sydney first.’

  ‘I bet. Her name comes up all the bloody time. Deborah thinks I don’t know about Barnes and … her, but I do. I did. Oh shit! Why did you have to …?’

  ‘That’s the nature of this business, Fel. It often comes down to this—the awkward question, the unwelcome name.’

  ‘I suppose you’re going to tell me they had a love nest in Elizabeth Bay or something?’

  ‘No. Nothing like that. I’m really interested in the business dealings—Barnes Enterprises and Athena Security.’

  She shook her head miserably. ‘I don’t know about that.’

  ‘This isn’t really the time to talk about it, but I don’t think you need to suffer. I don’t know anything that suggests Barnes was seriously involved with Marinos after he met you. And some things point the other way.’

  ‘What do you mean, seriously?’

  ‘Can we leave it until I get back?’

  ‘Sure, sure. Let’s leave it, period.’

  She flopped down on the bed and rolled over, burying her head in the pillow. I’m a combative person by nature and life and my trade have made me more so. I wanted to tell her that I knew about her deception with the photographs and paintings. If things had got sticky enough, I might even have said something about how Todd had saved his arse in Korea. But, painfully, I’ve learned to cut the connection between self-justification, my anger and my vocal cords. I tiptoed out of the bedroom, which was starting to fill with light.

  I got the car as close as I could to the place where Todd’s Calais had gone off the road. I had to walk back through some lantana and scrub and scramble up a steepish slope to reach the actual spot. I was breathing heavily when I got there. The day was clearing fast; a little mist hung around the top of the scarp but, from this height, the ships on the horizon were sharp-etched and the headland to the south was like a giant knife blade thrusting into the sea.

  Just beyond the restored section of barrier, the damage started. Some saplings had been scythed through, and the path taken by the car was visible through the undergrowth and light timber, down to the blackened area where it had burned, a hundred metres or more below the road. I tried to take a bearing from a post on the angle the car had taken. I imagined myself in the driver’s seat … opening the door … throwing something out as the car lost traction and the engine screamed. Not a pleasant process. The ferns and bracken were thick and still wet from the dew. I trampled them down, wishing I’d brought a bush knife or a scrub hook.

  Cars and trucks hummed on the road above me as I slowly worked my way along to the likely points of landing. I looked back and up through the misty air and could just make out the balcony of Warren Bradley’s house. I adjusted a little to the left, but the first promising clump of bushes held only a couple of beer cans, thrown from vehicles. My jeans were sopping wet to the thighs and I reopened the cut on my hand bending back branches and breaking bushes. Further down the slope, the trees shut out some of the light and made the search harder. There was no way to calculate how the bag would behave. Would it rip and distribute its contents? Would it bounce?

  I slogged on, bleeding, sweating and running out of chances. The bushes became hard and spiny, the earth underfoot was soft and I was aware that I was approaching a sizable drop. The slope was gullied by run-off water that had exposed the roots of some of the bigger trees. I caught my foot in one of the roots, fell over, swore and found the gar-bag. It was wedged in under a fallen branch; leaves and sticks and small stones carried by the run-off water had half-covered it and I had to tug it free. In so doing I ripped the plastic bag but that didn’t matter because it wasn’t a single bag but three or four heavy duty jobs enclosed inside each other. The other layers had been torn in various places, but not seriously. It was tied tightly with heavy twine at the top, and whatever was inside had been well protected.

  I stood with the bag in my hand, half-expecting someone to give me a round of applause. It was moderately heavy and bulky. It clinked and clunked when the contents moved inside. It didn’t tick or hum, and there was no tinkle of broken glass or rustle of paper. It seemed to have something firm, like plywood or heavy cardboard, as a base. I slung it over my shoulder and worked my way back across the rough ground and up the slopes. My fall had jarred my right arm slightly and I had to hold the bag in my left. As I swapped it over, I noticed I’d got blood on it. Tampering with the evidence.

  Back at the car, I opened the boot and cleared a space for the bag. The twine was thick and the knots had hardened. I cut it with a pocket knife. My burglar’s kit includes a pair of ru
bber gloves; I pulled them on and reached into the bag. In a couple of seconds I had fifteen objects spread out in front of me: pieces of wood and pieces of metal—the stocks and lengths of the barrels of seven Winchester double-barrelled shotguns. The wood was chipped and the metal was rubbed and scratched, but the cuts were fresh. As well, there was a set of blown-up photographs enclosed between stiff cardboard and tightly sealed with heavy masking tape.

  I put the stocks and barrels back in the bag and slit the tape that held the photographs together. The bag had hit hard, bounced and fallen a fair distance so that the cardboard was bent and creased. The photos likewise, but they were clear enough. The six glossy black-and-white shots had been taken at night. They showed shadowy scenes, from slightly different angles, of men unloading objects from a van. Some of the men wore silver jackets. Some of them carried automatic rifles. The faces of several of them were plainly visible.

  21

  Felicia turned over the photographs, straightening and smoothing them, laying them out on the kitchen table. She glanced at me uncertainly. It didn’t seem like the time to tackle the question of the authenticity of the photographs I had delivered to Piers Lang. These weren’t in the same class. ‘Pretty rushed work,’ I said. ‘Still, some of these faces are sharp.’

  ‘Mm, some kind of infrared system,’ she said. ‘I don’t know much about that sort of thing.’

  I pointed to one of the gun-toters, a pudgy, pale-looking individual with a vacant expression. ‘I feel I know this one, but I can’t place him.’

  ‘Barnes was killed on account of these photographs?’

  ‘I guess so.’ I opened the bag and exposed a couple of the sawn-off stocks and barrels. ‘And for these.’

  ‘Ugh. What are they?’

  I told her, and voiced my suspicion that the guns had been shortened on the Athena Security premises. ‘That in itself is a very serious offence. Barnes must have got wind of it somehow and acquired this evidence.’