by J. M. Green
I rang her number and was connected to her voicemail. I left my number and asked her to call.
My attention now turned to WORMS tasks. An email popped up from Fatima with the subject RESENDING! URGENT! and marked with red flags. No question: I needed to attend to it, and yet I battled a weird inertia. With a mighty burst of resolve, I pushed the curser over ‘open’ and was about to click, when some new clients arrived. I ran out to greet them and spent the morning walking them through the information they needed to embark on the long road to citizenship.
Just as they left, a courier delivered a large envelope from the Department of Justice, addressed to me. I tipped its contents onto my desk. There was a lanyard attached to a personalised ALL ACCESS pass and some documents. One was a letter from Puke, advising the general manager of Athol Goldwater Prison that representative Stella Hardy would be making a preliminary inspection of the facility on Friday at nine.
There was a wordy statement about the mission in there, too. The joint prison-assessment team was to inspect the facilities, review policies and procedures, and write up its findings vis-à-vis best practice, safety, security, and value for money. Since when was a simple bureaucratic chore a mission?
The phone on my desk rang.
‘Stella, Merri Phelan. What can I do for you?’
She did not sound like someone racked with grief.
‘Your mother dropped by the office yesterday,’ I began. ‘She was very determined to see me.’
‘Mum came to see you? What for?’
‘She’s convinced the department won’t investigate Joe’s death properly.’
A sigh. ‘She’s looking for someone to blame,’ Merri said. ‘It won’t bring Joe back. I told her that when she asked me to look into it.’
‘She said you recommended me.’
‘Oh for the love of — I never said any such thing. All I said was I knew you. I recognised you when we were waiting for Joe that day at the prison.’
‘You told her I help people?’
A pause. ‘I might have said that … but only to mean you’re someone I respect. I didn’t think she’d run off and enlist you.’
‘Well, I’m enlisted now.’
‘Stella! What did you say?’
I hesitated, trying to think. I wanted to get to Percy Brash and the coercion, but I didn’t want to explain what he had on me. ‘I’m on Pugh’s prison assessment team,’ I said. ‘So I told her I’d talk to some people, ask a few questions. It’s no trouble. Really.’
‘Talk to who?’
‘My brother, Ben, mainly. She’s convinced he’d know what goes on in Athol Goldwater.’
‘That is good of you. I worry; she’s on her own. I do what I can, but work is crazy …’
‘She has some support. An old friend of Joe’s, apparently — a bloke called Percy. Know him?’
‘Ugh, that guy. He’s a bully and a creep. I told her not to believe a word he says.’
‘He takes her shopping.’
‘What? I don’t know what she’s playing at. Brash is bad. I hope he doesn’t upset her.’
‘Upset her?’
‘Oh, Joe liked to rave about conspiracy theories. “The system’s rigged, the company’s corrupt, there’s a giant scam going on.” The usual drivel. It really riled her up.’
‘That’s what Pugh said — off the record, of course. He asked me to look out for it.’
‘That’s right, Stella, you’re on his bloody inspection team, aren’t you? You know, he hasn’t allowed a single member of a justice advocacy group to be involved? Not one.’
‘It doesn’t surprise me.’ The conversation needed steering back on track. ‘Tell me about Joe’s conspiracy theories.’
‘Just wild accusations. Crazy stuff. I can just imagine Brash is saying similar things about Joe’s death. Poor Mum believes it all and gets really distressed.’
‘I wouldn’t worry, your mum’s pretty fierce. I’m sure she can handle herself.’
Merri laughed. ‘She sure can. When the Coroner’s office phoned and said they’d like her to come in to give her an update, she goes, “Good! That way, you can look me in the eye when you bullshit me.”’
I forced insouciance into my voice. ‘Oh, really? When’s that?’
‘I’m taking her this afternoon. I don’t want to, to be honest. Besides I’m flat out here.’
‘I’m free this afternoon, I could take her.’
‘I hate to put you out, Stella.’
‘No problem. I like your mum.’
‘I owe you. I’ll set it up and call you back,’ she said and hung up.
It was hard to reconcile that the same man who takes his friend’s mother shopping was also a bully and a creep who would happily turn me into mush and bone fragments unless I gave him the name of Joe’s killer. Tick-tock, indeed, I barely knew where to start. I prayed the coroner would have some clues.
I looked at the unread Fatima email. Then decided I needed coffee. I faffed around in the staffroom for half an hour with the new coffee machine, but couldn’t get it to work. I returned, defeated, to my desk with a mug of instant. Come on, I told myself, do some work.
Or I could see what the media had made of Joe’s death. I looked around the open-plan office. Most people were out or busy. I did a quick google search and found a perfunctory piece that laid out the facts.
Corrections Victoria has issued a short statement relating to the death in custody of Joseph Phelan.
‘The prisoner was left momentarily unsupervised in a work shed. He was later found by staff lying on the floor and appeared to be injured. The prisoner refused officers’ requests to stand. An ambulance was called with medical attention immediately provided. Police attended the site and are investigating. The prisoner was confirmed to be deceased. His body was subsequently removed,’ a spokesman said.
‘As with all deaths in custody, the matter will be referred to the coroner, who will formally determine the cause of death.’
Phelan was sentenced in 2012 after being found guilty of fraud. He was due to be released in February 2017.
I closed the browser and at that exact moment, Merri called back. Mrs Phelan would be waiting outside the Coroner’s office at three-thirty. I wrote visiting a client on the staff activity board and ran to catch a tram.
8
‘PRELIMINARY POST-MORTEM examination indicates that the deceased suffered trauma to the left frontal lobe, due to the entry of an eighty-five-millimetre projectile, which penetrated the anterior fossa, where it became lodged in tissue.’
‘In English?’ Mrs Phelan demanded, leaning with both hands on her walking stick.
‘A nail in the head.’ The man held a thumb and finger wide apart. ‘This big.’
I felt cold and looked away. My gaze roamed the bland room, beige carpet, cold blue walls. A place soaked in shock and grief. Beside the man was a woman in a dark-coloured pants suit, hair in a bun, a clipboard holding a wad of papers under her arm. Now she stepped forward. ‘The prisoner had been using a nail gun, one that can fire nails that long,’ she said.
Mrs Phelan glared at her.
‘Brain trauma is the cause of death,’ said the woman. She lifted the clipboard and began checking the documents. ‘But the inquest will explore the events leading up to Joe’s death. Was the custodial environment, in regard to his ability to freely access the nail gun, up to departmental standards? Was there adequate supervision in that area of the prison on the afternoon of the deceased’s death?’ She let the papers fan back into place on the clipboard and looked up at us. ‘And finally, was the response to the deceased’s death in line with requirements?’
I glanced at Mrs Phelan. Her small body trembled with fury.
‘Suicide. Is that it?’ she said. ‘I’ll never believe that.’
The woman shook her head. ‘
It’s too early to say, but preliminary enquiries would suggest that death was the result of improper use of equipment. The department had purchased the nail gun twelve months earlier,’ she continued, glancing again at the papers. ‘The nail gun was specifically for use with timber-to-timber fixing or materials of similar or lesser density,’ she read. Now she gave Mrs Phelan a look of deep regret. ‘Joe was working with steel at the time of the incident.’
‘Who are you, again?’ I asked.
‘Dileshwar,’ the man said. ‘Forensic pathologist.’
‘No, I mean her.’ I pointed to the woman.
A long silence followed. The woman tucked a stray hair back in its bun. ‘As an indication of how seriously the department takes this investigation, I have been appointed to assist and report directly to —’
‘Oh, shut up,’ Mrs Phelan said. ‘No one cares about your career ambitions.’ She looked at Dileshwar. ‘Any cameras in there?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘No viable footage of the incident exists,’ the woman said.
Mrs Phelan sniffed. ‘Course not.’
‘We have the contractor’s report,’ the woman said, and she again read aloud from one of the papers. ‘An employee of BS12 observed Joe alone in Athol Goldwater Prison Shed 6 or AGP Shed 6 working on a sheet of metal balanced across two trestle supports, using the nail gun. She asked Joe if everything was alright. He said it was. She then left him. On her return, Joe was observed lying on the floor. The officer rushed in, prepared to perform CPR, thinking that the prisoner had perhaps suffered a heart attack. The officer found the deceased with a length of nail protruding from the side of the head. Emergency services were called immediately, and the prison was put on lock down.’
‘So you’re saying Joe was like this,’ I mimed firing a nail gun down onto an invisible table, ‘and the nail ricocheted off the metal,’ I traced the trajectory with a finger in the air, ‘travelled in a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree arc, and hit him here?’ I touched my temple.
‘He was probably leaning over the table.’ The woman bent at the waist and turned her face so her nose pointed to the wall and her ear was directed at the floor. With her painted fingernail, she traced the nail’s path so it ricocheted off the invisible table and went directly into her head. She straightened up. ‘Rest assured the nail gun has been removed, the shed is closed, and full review of relevant safety equipment is underway.’
‘What equipment?’ I said.
‘Safety glasses will be made available for all prisoners.’
‘Glasses?’ I tapped to my temple.
‘Full face helmets, in fact,’ she said.
Mrs Phelan and I exchanged a glance. She’d had enough of this poppycock, and so had I — except for one last question. ‘Which BS12 officer spoke to Joe before the incident?’
The woman shrugged. ‘I don’t have that information.’
Mrs Phelan and I walked past the grey gallery building towards St Kilda Road as the skies opened. She sped up, working her stick like a cross-country skier, so I had to trot to keep up. The rain intensified. I unclipped the umbrella strap, hit the trigger, and it shot open.
‘You get it now, don’t you? It wasn’t no accident. A classic hit more like it.’
She had a point, but I gave her a weak, non-committal shrug. I didn’t want to hear about ‘classic’ hits. It reminded me that I was a hostage to her and that gangster Brash.
‘Percy’s a colourful character,’ I said holding the umbrella over her.
She waved it away. ‘Colourful’s one of them euphemisms.’
‘Well, yes.’
‘All I know is, he’s loyal. I trust him.’
Loyal to whom?, I thought. She answered as if I’d said it out loud. ‘It’s money, Joe, and then me — in that order.’
Money first. At least she understood that. And I understood that, despite what he’d said, he’d come for my money before too long.
‘Like him?’ she asked.
‘Not really. You didn’t need to get him involved.’
She laughed and patted my shoulder.
The rain came all the harder, tepid and dirty. We rounded the corner and marched towards the city. Cars drove too fast, showering passers-by. Under the shelter of a tram stop, I collapsed my umbrella. A tram rolled up, spraying brown muck over our feet.
‘You right to get home by yourself?’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Not a bloody invalid.’
‘Okay, well, soon as I get something, I’ll give you a call.’
She winced, irritated. ‘No. Percy will get in touch with you.’
She climbed up and waved her stick at me as the tram moved off. I walked over the icky Yarra River, around the corner at Flinders Street Station, and down to Elizabeth Street to catch my own tram.
For the sake of my longevity, I needed something useful to tell when Brash called. At least today’s excursion had given me something to work with: sheet metalwork in Shed 6, a chat with a BS12 employee, then, unsupervised, no cameras, a nail gun to the head. A classic hit was putting it mildly. A loud metallic clack startled me as the Ascot Vale tram switched tracks, trundled slowly forward, and halted at its city terminus. Best I check out Shed 6 for myself.
Loretta was watching TV when I returned, with Nigel sitting on the sofa beside her. She was absent-mindedly pulling out clumps of his summer fur and letting them fall to the floor. I dropped my handbag on the kitchen table, disturbing a pile of moulted dog hair. Drifts of fuzz covered every centimetre of floor space in the flat.
‘Winter coat coming on.’
‘What?’ she said, staring at some reality television home-improvement dross.
‘Mind sweeping up his fluff for me?’
‘What fluff?’
I sighed. ‘What do you feel like for dinner?’
‘Anything.’
‘Okay, great. What about fish and chips?’
‘It gives me gas.’
‘What about Thai?’
‘Sure, if you like it. I won’t have much, it’s too spicy.’
‘Chinese?’
‘No.’
‘Pizza again?’
‘Sure, anything. I’m easy.’
Half an hour later, two cheese pizzas appeared, and in a matter of minutes, disappeared. Loretta was eating for two. And I … I liked eating. Besides, pizza-cheese was an essential part of every diet. I dashed downstairs with the boxes and some empty wine bottles to the communal recycle bin at the back of the flats. By the time I was back, I’d made up my mind to confront Loretta about the past and her whereabouts.
‘What church were you sleeping in again?’
‘Um. I forget.’ She was smooth, I’d give her that.
‘Who was that old man I saw you talking to yesterday?’
‘Me grandad,’ she said without hesitation.
‘Does he know you slept in a church?’
‘Oh no. It would upset him.’
I bet. ‘Does he live around here?’
‘He hates town. Only come down to see me, make sure I’m alright.’
‘Next time your grandfather is in town, I’d like to meet him.’
She shook her head. ‘You’ve done so much, having me here, giving up your bed. I couldn’t ask you to have Grandad as well.’ After an exaggerated yawn, she went off to bed. I set my alarm and stretched out on the sofa. Nigel walked in a circle on his bed, settled down, and started to snore.
Loretta and Nigel were testing my family obligations to the limit. I thought about Meredith Phelan. How her mother was a borderline sociopath who loved Percy Brash, and how he intimidated people for her. And how Merri seemed like such a different person to her mother, yet still supported her. She was pretty excellent really. And I started to wonder if maybe I could do better. I would endure Loretta and Nigel. And Ben. And I’d be mo
re tolerant of Kylie. And my mother, Delia. And her church-going, real-estate-selling, nob of a husband, Ted.
Maybe not Ted.
And maybe not Kylie, either.
9
A TIRED-LOOKING guard checked my ID and waved me through the gates. He pointed out an empty parking space. Not empty. The jack who’d taken charge of things last weekend was standing there, waiting. I stared at her name badge: Tuffnell. That’s right.
‘You’re late,’ she said.
‘It’s just on nine.’
‘That’s the meeting time. Visitors must allow fifteen minutes for processing.’
‘No one told me.’
‘Just hurry up and get out of the car. I’ll conduct the search myself.’
I followed Tuffnell to the visitor waiting room. She tipped the contents of my bag onto a table and began sorting through every single item with disdain. Her long nails like tweezers, picking things up and letting them fall. She pulled out the lining of my sunglasses case, looking for a hidden compartment. The process was galling and embarrassing.
And to think the day had started with such promise. The pink morning sky had made me want to sing. And I was looking my best in a floral silk blouse and cream linen pants. My feet were comfy in a pair of soft cotton socks and cream leather mules. I’d lifted my sartorial game lately, having hit the fund. I’d even lashed out on designer sunglasses, polarised for extra glare reduction. I’d had my old pair for years. It was a weird universal law that you never lose or sit on the sunglasses you don’t care for.
I’d even remembered to bring all the things I needed: Kylie’s papers, the guidelines for the inspection, and the departmental ID. So that was a win. I had an old clipboard from a conference I’d attended, and I’d attached all the Department of Justice paperwork to it, with Kylie’s papers at the back.