O'Fear

by Peter Corris

  ‘God,’ she said, ‘That sounds serious.’

  ‘It’s dynamite. Athena’s a very big business, and it’s growing. The right connections, very important contracts. A thing like this could lead anywhere.’

  She was standing close to me and she put her hand on my arm. ‘I’m sorry about this morning. I haven’t sorted myself out yet.’

  I’d been wound up tight, trying not to say the wrong thing, watching the implications of every word. Now I relaxed a bit. ‘It’s not surprising. A hell of a lot’s been happening very fast. And it’s all confusing.’

  ‘Yes, it is.’ She dropped her hand but perhaps it didn’t matter. Maybe we were on the way back to harmony. ‘Tell me everything,’ she said. ‘What d’you know about Barnes and Eleni Marinos?’

  I retied the bag and collected the photographs. I knew I’d be spreading them out and getting tired eyes from staring at them and feeling the frustration mount as I struggled to put a name to the face. I didn’t want all that to start yet. I remember thinking when I found it that the bag hadn’t ticked; it was starting to tick now. ‘What about some breakfast?’ I said.

  She smiled. ‘You’re stalling, but okay.’

  She cut a grapefruit and made coffee while I toasted bread and boiled the eggs. We bumped into each other moving around in the small kitchen. That was nice. We took the food out onto the deck. The sun was well up, but there was a light cloud cover and no wind. The sea was serene; a pale, rippling grey.

  Clambering around on a hillside at dawn had made me hungry. I wolfed down the grapefruit. I cut an egg in half, scooped it out and spread it on the toast. Then I shook salt and pepper over it. Felicia scowled at me.

  ‘Too much salt. Much too much. Your arteries’ll be like cement pipes.’

  ‘I gave up tobacco and cut down on alcohol,’ I said. ‘Please leave me my salt.’

  She shrugged. ‘Your arteries. Tell me about it, Cliff.’

  ‘I can’t tell you much. I’m mostly guessing. It looks as if Barnes became suspicious of Athena for some reason, did a bit of checking and investigating, and he really came up with something. The men in the photos are unloading a security van at night. They all look pretty edgy, and I’d say they’re handling the proceeds of a robbery. As for the shotgun bits—seven shortened shotguns were used in a big payroll holdup earlier this year. It can’t be a coincidence.’

  She stopped chewing her unsalted egg and unbuttered toast. ‘Athena Security men are armed robbers?’

  ‘That’s the way it looks.’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘It’s hard to know what to think. O’Fear was very vague about where and when Barnes collected the stuff in the bag, and we’ve got no idea of the date of the photos, or of where they were taken.’

  ‘At the Athena place, surely?’

  ‘Maybe. It looks as if Barnes sat on the evidence for a while. He was probably trying to work out what to do with it.’

  ‘Or trying to protect her.’

  I filed away sceptical, cynical, subversive thoughts of Barnes Todd the blackmailer. I was determined to get some breakfast and keep the temperature of the discussion low. I ate some more toast and egg and drank some coffee before I replied. ‘Or he could have been trying to find out whether she was involved. It’s a big organisation. She might not know everything that goes on.’

  Felicia bit her lip and stared fiercely at the placid sea. ‘You’re defending him and trying to shield her.’

  ‘Christ! I’ve never laid eves on the woman.’

  Something in my tone alerted her. She swivelled around and stabbed the air with her fork. ‘I bet you have.’

  ‘Well, yes. I’ve seen her. But …’

  ‘With Barnes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Fuck you!’

  ‘All I’m saying is that were in the dark. Totally. We have to examine every possibility.’

  ‘I don’t see why. We’ve got the evidence. Let’s blow the whistle on them.’

  I shook my head. ‘It’s not that easy. Photographs aren’t much good as evidence. They can be faked and denied pretty easily.’

  ‘Especially if the photographer’s dead?’

  I nodded. ‘The stocks and barrels don’t necessarily mean anything either. Not without O’Fear to testify as to where they came from and to identify the bag.’

  ‘Fingerprints?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Where is O’Fear?’

  ‘That’s another thing I don’t know.’ I ate the other egg and another piece of toast.

  ‘I begin to get the idea,’ she said. ‘You’ve found out a lot of things, but you’ve still got more questions than answers. Is it always like this?’

  I nodded. ‘Mostly. Sometimes it never becomes any clearer.’

  ‘That must be a bastard. Well, what d’you do next?’

  ‘Investigate Athena and look for O’Fear.’

  ‘His name was the last sound Barnes uttered.’ Felicia’s top lip trembled as she spoke, but she got it quickly under control. ‘That has to have some significance.’

  ‘You’re right,’ I said, and left all the other things unsaid.

  As we made the turn out of the national park, Felicia said, ‘I suppose you know you’re screwing up my life?’

  We had made love before leaving the house early in the afternoon. It hadn’t been as good as the other times and we both knew it. We had both pretended otherwise, and we knew that too. I had the photographs in the glove box and the gar-bag on the back seat of the Falcon. I was thinking more about them and all the questions surrounding them than about the woman. That was part of the trouble.

  ‘I’m sorry you feel like that, Fel. I wish you wouldn’t.’

  ‘I suppose you think we’ll end up just good friends when all this is over. Is this part of your investigative technique? Screwing one of the principals?’

  I forced a laugh which sounded false, even to me. ‘I’m more likely to get screwed by the principals. Tell me, did you and Barnes talk much about him and Eleni Marinos?’

  She was silent for a while, then she said, ‘Just once.’

  ‘Can you talk about it?’

  She thought for about a mile before deciding she could talk. She told me that she’d found out that Barnes had spent a weekend at Thirroul with Eleni Marinos not long after their marriage. She had tackled him about it. ‘Barnes said it was to break off with her finally. I told him I thought our marriage was supposed to do that. He told me I didn’t understand. Shit!’

  She reached into the glovebox for tissues; out of the corner of my eye I saw her hand fall on my gun in its holster. She was close to tears but she started to laugh instead. ‘Christ,’ she said. ‘A businessman who turns out to be a romantic and a tough guy who boils three-minute eggs. I can really pick ’em. My life’s turning into a fantasy.’ She didn’t cry, so she didn’t need the tissue. She balled it up and threw it over her shoulder into the back seat with the gar-bag.

  I reached across her and closed the glovebox.

  ‘Haven’t you got a licence for it?’ she said.

  ‘I have. Let’s stick to the point. Barnes must’ve said something more than, “You don’t understand.” He wasn’t an inarticulate man.’

  ‘Sure. Sure. He said she’d helped him at a time when he needed help. She’d encouraged him when he needed encouragement. I wanted to hear that like I wanted to read my own obituary.’

  ‘That’s all?’

  ‘He said she was in a bad way now, and that there was nothing sexual between them. He couldn’t just cut her off.’

  ‘What did he mean by that? Business or personal trouble?’

  We were in Sydenham, negotiating the heavy traffic. I saw an Athena Security van up ahead and nearly braked as a reaction. She saw it too.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I’m beginning to think that these business types don’t make a distinction. Like you.’

  ‘Come on, Fel. It’s not like that.’

  ‘Isn’t i
t? Well, anyway, I don’t know whether it was the one or the other. I got in a rage and didn’t listen.’

  ‘Try to remember. It could be important.’

  ‘Business. Personal. Who knows? There was a name mentioned. God, I don’t know. Reagan? No, that’s not it. Riley. Right. Riley was part of her trouble. Who the fuck’s Riley?’

  ‘He’s in the picture,’ I said. ‘He owns trucks. And people.’

  All the oldtime pirates, bushrangers and bank robbers thought the same—if you’ve got something to hide, they reckoned, stash it somewhere that’s already been searched. Given that principle, I had plenty of hiding places available. I drove to Coogee, keeping a very careful watch for a tail. I circled the block around the Todd house, stopped, parked and pulled out at irregular intervals. It was warm in the car, and the procedure was tedious.

  ‘When can we stop this?’ Felicia said.

  I was doing a careful check of all the parked cars for a couple of blocks in each direction. I had three or four more streets to cover. ‘When I’m sure,’ I said.

  ‘Wake me.’

  I went on with the tour and included the Coogee Bay hotel in the survey. A good pub to while away some time in, but I saw nothing suspicious. Finally I stopped outside the house. I opened the bag, put on my rubber gloves and eased out two stocks and barrels. I wrapped a T-shirt lightly around them and put them with the photographs under the driver’s seat. I put the plastic bag inside my overnight bag and zipped it. ‘Okay, Fel. Let’s go inside.’ I knew what I wanted. I wanted to put the bag in her house and take her back to mine.

  ‘You’re going to walk into my house carrying your dirty weekend bag?’

  ‘Has to be that way. I’m sorry. Are you worried about your reputation?’

  She slung her own bag over her shoulder. ‘Who gives a shit?’

  We went through the gate and up the path towards the house. ‘You haven’t been back since the break-in, have you?’ I pointed to the bushes by the verandah. ‘That’s where I ripped my shirt getting up.’

  ‘Sue me,’ she said.

  We went inside. Felicia prowled through the house, noting the results of the search—the disturbed rooms, the broken window in the kitchen. I gathered up the sheets she stripped savagely from the bed and put them on top of the gar-bag in the laundry basket that stood in the second bathroom beside the washer and dryer.

  ‘Finished, have you?’ She stood in the doorway, still holding her coat and looking at me as if I was the one who had desecrated her house.

  I tugged at a sheet to give the laundry basket a natural look and didn’t answer. The telephone rang and she grabbed it. She listened, sighed and tapped her foot.

  ‘All right,’ she said, and hung up.

  I watched her as she paced the floor like a nervous parent. ‘Piers Lang,’ she said at last. ‘I gather you and he had a little talk?’

  Her expression was fierce. I didn’t reply.

  ‘I can’t stay here,’ she said. ‘I want to go to Redfern.’

  I looked at her. She was standing with her legs slightly apart as if balanced to throw a left hook. It wasn’t the right time for me to offer her the comforts of my overpriced, undermaintained terrace. ‘That’s a good idea. I’ll drive you.’

  ‘I don’t care whether you think it’s a good idea or not. I’m going. My car’s in the street. I’ll drive myself. And you can go to hell.’

  I didn’t argue. I left the house after getting the registration number of her white Camira and making sure she had my home and office numbers. I checked her car over carefully for signs of interference, found nothing and drove off. I parked at the top of the street and waited until she left the house and got into the car. The Camira had stood idle for a good few days and she had some trouble starting it. I wondered if it would become a farce—me giving her a push. But the car started. She drove away fast and recklessly and I followed her, taking precautions. She parked in Chalmers Street and got out of the car, carrying her bag. She banged her knee and swore. Then she moved stiffly, tight with anger or sorrow or both. I would have liked to comfort her.

  It was late in the day and I was tired. The embryonic beard was itchy on my face. I wanted a shower and a shave; I wanted a big drink and a house that didn’t leak and smell of mould. I wanted a woman who didn’t lie to me more than I lied to her and didn’t change her mind and mood in ways I couldn’t fathom. And I wanted to find Kevin O’Fearna.

  22

  I slept badly. I fancied I could hear burglars and arsonists and graffitists working their way through the house. I woke up a lot and had a few drinks. I finally got some sleep around dawn and felt like hell when I woke up at ten. The milk was sour and the bread was stale. I drank black coffee and scribbled notes in my notebook. Most of the notes ended in question marks. I went into the bathroom and looked at the beard. Not too bad, I thought, Bit of grey. Distinguished, intellectual even. Maybe if I kept it, I’d have some good ideas. I had a shower and began to feel better.

  I drove in to Darlinghurst; the evidence I’d kept under the car seat and then under my bed I locked away in the office safe before I phoned Athena Security. The personnel manager was interested to hear from me. Yes, they were still recruiting. Yes, they valued experience. He only stopped saying yes when I said I’d need to talk to Eleni Marinos in person before I could consider joining the firm. He said he’d have to get back to me on that.

  Call number two was to Michael Hickie. I asked him to find out all he could about Athena Security and its links, if any, to Riley’s outfit.

  ‘That’s your line of territory,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll be working on it, too. I’ll look into people and you can look into money.’

  ‘I’m interested in people too, you know.’

  ‘Don’t be,’ I said. ‘Most aren’t worth the trouble.’

  ‘You’re low. Having trouble with Felicia?’

  I grunted.

  ‘Barnes said she was trouble, but worth it.’

  I grunted again and hung up. I’d had to quote the number on my operator’s licence to the Athena bloke and, in the process of locating it, I had strewn the contents of my wallet across the desk. I looked at the credit cards and the meagre amount of cash and the creased driver’s licence and suddenly felt small and isolated. My only backup in the office was an answering machine; my only means of transport was the Falcon; I had an illegal Colt .45 and a properly licensed Smith & Wesson .38 for firepower. No helicopters, no armoured vans, no shotguns. Who was I kidding? This was too big for me.

  It was midday and I was dry. Well, that’s what a cask of red wine is for. I poured a small one, swallowed it along with some pride, and phoned Detective-Inspector Frank Parker of the New South Wales Police, a body whose motto is, ‘Punishment swiftly follows the crime’. Two years ago Parker had married Hilde Stoner, who had been a lodger in my house. They now had a son whom they had named after me.

  ‘Parker.’

  ‘Hardy.’

  ‘Gidday, Cliff. How many favours can I do you? Just ask.’

  ‘Christ, what’s got into you? Did your shares go up?’

  ‘What shares? No, your namesake took his first steps last night.’

  ‘Bit slow off the mark, isn’t he?’

  ‘Piss off. Twelve months. Bit above average.’

  ‘That’d be right. Hilde okay? Good. Look, Frank, I’ve got a bit of a problem.’ I kept it vague, but intimated that I might have evidence connected with a major crime or possibly a series of crimes. I don’t why I said that, probably because cops say it.

  ‘I hear you went bail for O’Fear,’ Frank said. ‘Is there a connection?’

  ‘Could be. Are your people still interested in fingerprints and microscopic fibres and that sort of thing? Or do you just wait for the crims to blow each other away these days?’

  ‘Spare me the mordant wit, Cliff. What do you want?’

  ‘A talk. After work today, in the bar at Central Railway?’

  ‘Are you catching a
train somewhere?’

  ‘No, I like the atmosphere.’

  ‘Are you okay, Cliff?’

  ‘Is anyone? See you around six, Frank.’

  I had some more wine, which I sipped slowly while I looked out at the blue sky through the grey-brown window. I plucked at my near-beard but didn’t feel any brighter. I poured another glass of wine, and when the phone rang I reached for it, lazily, thinking it would be the man from Athena. I lifted the receiver and two men walked into the office without knocking. One of them was big and one was small. The small one held a gun that looked like a .357 Magnum Colt, the one with the short barrel. It made him seem a lot bigger than he was. He gestured with the Colt for me to hand the phone to the big man. I didn’t do it, so the big man punched me in the face. I dropped the phone as I rocked back in my chair. He picked it up from the desk.

  ‘Right,’ he said into the receiver. ‘We’re here.’ He replaced the receiver and sat down in the hard, unpadded client’s chair. The lack of comfort didn’t seem to bother him. The small man leaned against the wall beside the half-open door; he held the gun in such a way that a ten-centimetre movement would train it on my chest.

  ‘I think it’s time we stopped pissing around, Hardy,’ the big man said. ‘I’m Stanley Riley.’

  I rubbed my cheekbone where the punch had landed. He had pulled it so that the skin hadn’t split and I’d been more surprised than hurt. Expert stuff. He was well over six feet tall and beefy with it, although his well-cut grey suit concealed the flab. His face had that plain, fleshy, stamped-out-of-the-mould look you see on prison guards and ex-footballers. He had heavy eyebrows and a deep dimple in his chin that wasn’t cute. His mouth was a thin, hard split in the lower end of his face and his eyes were wide apart, bland and innocent.

  I pointed to the gunman. ‘And what’s his name?’

  ‘He doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Hear that?’ I said. ‘You don’t matter.’

  The gunman had a dark wispy beard, a wall eye and a scarred, puckered left cheek. He looked through me towards the window but it was hard to tell where he was really looking. He reached out and put the Colt on top of my filing cabinet. Then he reached into the pocket of his windbreaker and took out a single cigarette. He lit it with a disposable lighter, blew smoke and reclaimed his gun. He didn’t speak.