by J. M. Green
It was cooler inside than I’d expected. But the metal shell rang as it expanded, and no doubt it would be sweltering in here by afternoon. A skylight let in a blinding square of daylight. The concrete floor was swept and tidy, no stain of blood remained. Tools lined the walls, in order of size, and a long workbench was clear of clutter. It was the shed of an obsessive. A handyman’s dream. My father would have swooned.
Ranik hit the lights and lowered the door. I walked around, not finding much of interest. Numerous people had been over the place, photographed the scene, taken all evidence, he explained in a nervous stream.
‘… and the nail gun is with the coroner,’ he said and drew breath.
‘What happened to the component parts of the project Joe was working on?’
‘Steel. It was recycled.’
‘Not kept as evidence?’
He coughed. ‘No.’
‘What was Joe’s project at the time?’
‘A small repair job for a leaking roof. He’d been cutting a Colorbond sheet to size.’
‘With a nail gun?’
‘We theorise that he’d cut the sheet too short and was trying to join two pieces together.’
‘Theorise?’
‘Yes. The other explanation is that he was bored. Inmates take risks for a kick; our job half the time is to keep them from doing something silly.’
I thought about that. The sheets of steel might have settled the matter. I scanned the corners of the roof. ‘Where are the cameras?’
Ranik pointed to a rafter. A camera was directed at the door. ‘There’s one over the bench as well. They’re dormant until a sensor detects a moving object. State of the art, sees in the dark up to thirty metres with infrared night vision.’
‘So the camera can move around, following people as they walk around the area?’
‘No.’
‘Any footage from that day at all?’
‘I’m afraid not. My IT people tell me there was a problem with image capture — or was it file corruption? — some error at any rate. They’re working on it. But we do know that only one person was in the shed at the time. Joe Phelan.’
The roller door went up again, and Nell Tuffnell was blocking the light.
‘Look,’ I said. ‘It’s the PP.’
‘Yes, Nell?’ Ranik said.
‘Lacy’s waiting for you,’ she said.
He nodded. ‘And that concludes the inspection.’
‘Not quite. I’m going to inspect Joe’s unit, then I’ll call it a day. Go to your meeting, I’ll walk down. Which one is his?’
Ranik managed a smile. ‘Swainsona. I’ll take you.’
We rushed from the shed to the car. Tuffnell passed us and jumped in the back. Ranik drove in silence. Perhaps it was the heat but his high-spirits had evaporated. We drove by Callistemon. Ben was on the front steps smoking a cigarette. He waved as we passed. Swainsona was directly behind his unit, beside a kitchen garden. Ranik paused the car outside the unit for Tuffnell and I to unstick from the seats and get out. I took my clipboard and pen for show. Sweat dripped down my back. Once we were out, Ranik drove further down the road and parked on the verge.
The front plaque featured a Sturt’s Desert Pea, and, beside the door, a plant was dying in a plastic pot. Once inside, I saw the building had a similar layout to Ben’s.
‘Is anyone in Joe’s unit?’
‘Not yet,’ Tuffnell said.
She led the way to Joe’s bedroom: a single bed, stripped; a built-in wardrobe, empty; and a desk with one empty drawer. The window had a view of a productive vegetable garden, with rows of tomato plants, some fruit still ripening in autumn. There were several varieties of lettuce, some strawberries, and other berries on stakes.
I returned my attention to the room, and kicked at the floor tiles with a toe.
‘We tested each one, none were loose,’ Tuffnell said. ‘The linen’s been changed, the mattress gone over. We checked the ceiling, the wall panels. We’ve pulled the place apart and found nothing.’
‘What did you expect to find?’
Ranik arrived. ‘Oh, it’s routine in the event of an incident.’
I made a perfunctory knock on a wall, looked around. ‘Okay. Thanks. Let’s go.’
‘Yes,’ said Ranik. ‘I’ll get the car.’
Outside, Tuffnell and Ranik headed for the car. I hung back and crouched beside the dead plant. I drove my pen into the soil in several places and met no resistance. I stood, ready to admit defeat, when Ben came into view. He was making a cornering motion with his hand.
‘Just having a quick look around the back, see the veggie patch,’ I called out.
Ranik and Tuffnell exchanged a look. ‘Fine. Come on.’ And they started back towards me.
I ran around the side of the building. Along the wall, in the shade of eaves, was a row of black plastic twenty-five-centimetre pots, each one containing a lush green coriander plant.
‘What’s with all the coriander?’ I used an outside voice, hoping Ben heard.
‘Some of the prisoners sell surplus produce at the local farmers’ market,’ Tuffnell said.
‘How good is this? Never get coriander this healthy when I try to grow it.’
Ranik’s pageboy hair was damp, and he mopped his red face with a handkerchief.
Ben came trotting up to us. ‘Guys! You have to taste this new recipe I’m working on.’ He stopped, so that Ranik and Tuffnell had to turn towards him.
Straight away, I pushed my pen into each pot. Four, five, six pots, each received the pen easily. Ranik and Tuffnell were telling Ben to go back to his unit. I was down to the last pot, crouching over it to hide what I was doing. A solid object in the soil stopped the pen just below the surface. I glanced up.
Ben was arguing with Ranik, but Tuffnell turned around to check up on me. I picked a coriander leaf and made a show of smelling it. Ben shouted her name, and she turned back.
I quickly knocked the coriander pot over with my shoe. It spilled, plant and soil, onto the grass. I felt a corner of soft plastic in the soil, then a solid shape inside: a mobile phone inside a ziplock bag. I shoved it into my cotton sock, and the leg of my pants covered it. Then I shoved the plant in the pot and started scooping dirt. I had it back in place as Tuffnell came over.
‘Get in the car, Hardy. Mark Lacy’s been in the OM’s office for twenty bloody minutes.’
Ranik drove directly to the fleet-vehicle car park where we’d started. He got out and gave me a curt nod. ‘Thank you for coming. I do hope you found the visit informative.’
‘Sure did. Who’s this bloke you’re meeting now? Lacy?’
‘Contract manager. Routine visit.’
Tuffnell walked me to the Mazda, which was now roasting in the sun in the public car park. A new white Camry with state government registration was parked beside it. She left me without a word and went back to the admin building. I jumped into my car, opened the folder and jotted down the name Mark Lacy.
11
I KEPT the needle on one hundred and ten, the window open, and the radio blaring a song I didn’t know. Melbourne was in my sights. I was squinting because — of course — I’d left the designer sunglasses in Ranik’s car. I glanced at the contraband mobile phone, still in the ziplock bag, lying on the front passenger seat.
About an hour outside Melbourne, I took an exit and entered a sleepy town with a pub, a petrol station, and a couple of sun-bleached weatherboard houses. There was also a park with a fancy raised flowerbed, a cannon, and a drinking fountain. A sign thanked the local Rotarians for this charming community facility. Not a living soul stirred. Two cars outside the pub were the only signs of life. I pulled over and inspected the phone. Older-model android, a crack in the screen. I pressed the power-on button to no avail.
I walked to the servo and bought a bottle of w
ater, an android charger that used the car’s lighter port, and a discounted CD of Led Zeppelin hits. On my way out, I spotted a rack of sunglasses. I twirled the swinger, tried on a couple, and ended up buying a pair of wraparound speed-dealer Oakleys.
The Mazda lighter was missing. I plugged in the charger and waited to hear a ping of connection in Joe’s phone. Nothing happened. No green lightning bolt or other sign of recharging. The lighter port in the Mazda was stuffed. And there was no point taking the charger back and getting one for a USB port; a car this old didn’t have that kind of thing. The phone would have to wait. I put on the sunglasses and slotted the CD into the player.
With a seventies British scream and a frenzied guitar riff, I was set to go. No, I wasn’t. Something buzzed. I turned the music off and checked my phone. Phuong had sent me a photo. A selfie in a hairdressing salon. Caption: new do. Long single strands of black silky hair clung to the plastic cape. Top quality hair, that. Over the years, I’d admired and even envied that which was now so recklessly discarded. Her smile was broad, as if this sharp pixie cut was the ultimate liberation, her spirit now free. And holy shit — how was it possible? — she was even more kick-arse. There’d been no warning, no I’m thinking of cutting, no ugh my hair. Just bam! Gone. I hurriedly responded with hearts and applause and champagne symbols. She answered with instructions to meet her at a new bar near her place, including a choice of directions, in case one was congested, and best parking prospects.
I responded with a thumbs up. Drinking was a brilliant idea. In fact, I wondered how I’d allowed my drinking to lapse so badly these past few days. Any sane person in my position would be shickered from morning till night.
Winds from the inferno of the central Australian desert had scorched the lower east of the country all day, and the heat had reached its zenith around three in the afternoon. Then, the wind direction shifted from north to south, and brought the chill of the Antarctic. This was summer weather. But these days, autumn was summer, up was down, and truth was lies.
By the time I hit Ascot Vale around five-ish, the air temperature was refreshingly benign, but my place was still an oven. I went through the flat, opening every window. Loretta was absent, and I assumed she had decided to take Nigel for a walk now the change had come.
In the safety of my secure domain, I took Joe’s phone from its plastic bag. It was a thing of beauty. A sacred relic. With this object I might secure my very life. Surely, it would please Percy Brash. Surely, he would recognise its value. And, verily, he would let me be.
I plugged the phone into my own charger and connected it to a power outlet beside the couch. Then I hid the phone under a copy of Gourmet Traveller. I’d bought it on a whim, thinking Brophy and I might one day travel to some far-off place: stay in a posh converted Indian palace, or laze around a villa on an Aegean cliff, or island hop in the South Pacific — anything as long as it was an improvement on the holidays of my childhood. Those were caravanning horror stories that still gave me nightmares.
Next, I rang Kylie and left her a voicemail to the effect that I was the world’s best sister and the papers were signed. She was welcome.
There was plenty of time before I was due to meet with Phuong. And, since Joe’s phone would take some time to charge, I decided to check in at work. Besides, I had printing to do.
Fridays at WORMS were casual and relaxed. Sometimes, we knocked off early and had a few beers in the tea room before we went our separate ways. Other times, the place was cleared on the dot of five, with recently vacated desk chairs still spinning in the darkened office. Today, apart from Fatima in her office, I had the place to myself, and much googling to do, kicking off with Enrique Nunzio.
Media hits said the South American was a former cattle farmer with an interest in agri-tech. I trawled puff and guff about how he was headhunted by BS12 to work at Athol Goldwater, their flagship prison-farm-cum-tech-lab model. I saw nothing of note. Then, an old article on an incidence of biosecurity breach popped up. Nunzio’s name was obliquely associated with a scam to import South American bovine blood products and relabel them as Australian, with the aim of on-selling the products at a huge profit. Even the CSIRO had been fooled. Nunzio denied all knowledge of it and had threatened to sue. Such threats were a sign of guilt, I baselessly concluded as I hit print. Here was a nice bone to throw to Marcus Pugh: Enrique Nunzio might be your scam-artist on the payroll. Had no one done a background check? It seemed pretty inept.
That gave me the idea to examine the administrative structures around the prison, and I started with Pugh. His press releases came up — boring! — with links to the departments and agencies under his command. I looked up key senior personnel and viewed the images: Justice Department secretary, a middle-aged white man; Police Commissioner, a middle-aged white man; members of the parole board, middle-aged white men. Better was the ratio of the Supreme Court of Victoria Justices, starting with the Chief Justice, who was an actual woman. And a smattering of women were on the Court of Appeal.
The organisational chart for Corrections Victoria showed the executive team: a family tree of homogenous Anglo male faces. Deputy Commission of Prisons, boring white dude. Contract manager, Mark Lacy, was also a boring white dude. In his photo, Lacy faced the camera with a confident smile, his red hair, thinning on top, combed back, his red moustache neatly trimmed. I remembered the name. He’d had a meeting with Ranik at Athol Goldwater today.
According to Lacy’s profile, he oversaw delivery of every out-sourced prison service for Corrections Victoria: prisoner transport, youth detention, prisoner monitoring, home-detention systems, remand, and all private prison contracts. He was the image of a man without a care in the world. An old-school public servant with the confidence of a person who understood that if something was not accomplished today, there would always be tomorrow. If some aspect of contract management ran into difficulty, well, the government of the day, not the public servants, would pay the price. He looked like a man with all his ducks in a row.
After a quick search for numbers, I discovered that the system-wide costs of male prisons in Victoria was around eight-hundred million dollars. A big budget, and Lacy managed it all — awarded all the contracts. Try as I might, I couldn’t find the cost of the BS12 contract.
I switched focus back to personnel, to Ranik. He’d had a long boring admin career and had been employed by BS12 at various sites since 2015.
Tuffnell: Nothing much. A cleanskin BS12 employee. Her Facebook page was a series of cringe-inducing self-portraits in resort-wear, beach-wear, swim-wear, eye-wear, head-pieces, statement pieces, and leisure-wear. Nell Tuffnell liked cruises and novelty over-sized cocktails. Nell like her nails long, in fun colours. She sometimes got too much sun.
I hit print on everything but Tuffnell’s Facebook photos. While the printer was spitting out former trees, I took a new purple folder from the stationery cupboard and using a big fat texta wrote Pugh/ Prisons on the front. If anyone questioned me for researching these people at work, in work time, using work things, I’d say it was part of my inspection-team duties.
I replaced the cap on the marker just as my phone buzzed with an incoming text.
Brash: tick tock
My heart lurched.
‘How was the prison?’
‘What?’ I screamed.
Fatima sat beside me. ‘Sorry to startle you.’
I pretended to laugh. ‘Oh no! I’m fine, I mean, good. Prison was good.’
She didn’t say anything. I looked down at my desk.
‘Anything else to tell me?’ she asked.
She had something in mind, but I was hopelessly oblivious. The work of WORMS had not been at the top of my priorities for days, possibly weeks. I shook my head.
‘No?’
Would it be unprofessional, I wondered, to ask for a hint?
‘How’s the presentation coming?’
‘Presentati
on?’
Her cheeks puffed, and she slowly pushed the air out. ‘The one you’re delivering next Thursday morning to the other agencies. We spoke about it. It’s all in the email I sent you.’
I pretend-laughed again. ‘Just kidding. Of course I remember.’
‘It’s not a joke. This is a whole new direction for us. I’m expanding the agency’s work to include an inter-agency support role. It’s an adjacent business that targets other agencies, provides mentoring, administrative advice, grant-writing assistance, cooperative planning, mutually harmonious projects, information sharing, and professional-development training. A favourable reception for your address is vital to its success.’
My mind was blown. I had no inkling of this new direction. When she left me, I dropped the Pugh/Prisons file into the bottom drawer of my desk, and I opened her email.
12
AS PER Phuong’s instructions, I found the bar and scored an excellent parking spot in a side street. Cui Bono? was a vast brick-and-concrete drinking hall, serving a range of beers on tap, elaborate cocktails, and exotic share plates. Sure, they sounded delicious, but you’d need a second mortgage for half a spring roll and a sip of beer. If ‘who benefits?’ was the question, the answer was: the bar owners, their heirs and successors, ad infinitum, amen.
I swooshed my petrol station eyewear to the top of my head, and my eyes adjusted to the dark. The place teemed with covens of financially and emotionally independent professional women. I hoped they freaked out the old white guard, because they scared the hell out of me.
Phuong had secured first-rate terrain, a back-to-the-wall power position as advised by feng shui with clear lines of sight as per Sun Tzu. She wore a black stretch strapless dress; this afforded the mortals a view of her shoulders, décolletage, and slender neck. Her handbag, an over-sized raspberry, sat on the empty stool beside her. It was a collection of spherical segments in gorgeous red silk with a gold chain. I conquered the stool next to it. ‘You spunk,’ I said, eyeing her haircut.