Peter Corris - O'Fear

‘Nothing serious, I hope an’ pray?’ O’Fear said.

‘Gastro, or something like that. From the wog tucker, I expect.’

O’Fear waved a finger at him. ‘Prejudice.’

‘When you two get through with your routine,’ I said, ‘maybe I can do some work. I might not need all the details now, Bob. I think we have a closer focus on the problem. That’s if this bloody Irishman can remember where he was on a certain night.’

Mulholland looked puzzled and O’Fear gave him a wink. ‘He owes me money. Makes him testy. Are you goin’ to look at the car?’

It was difficult to stay annoyed with O’Fear for long. ‘I am that,’ I said. ‘Can we take a look at the Lasers, Bob?’

Mulholland pointed to three sets of keys Ranging on hooks near the door. A truck roared into the yard and I heard shouting. ‘I’m pretty busy,’ Mulholland said. ‘Do you…?’

‘Go on,’ I said. ‘We’ll try to keep out of your hair.’

He strode to the window of the office and gesticulated at the truck driver. O’Fear and I went out and walked towards the part of the yard where the Lasers were parked. We had to wait for two trucks to back past us towards the loading bays.

‘Busy around here,’ O’Fear said.

I told him about Felicia Todd’s decision to keep Barnes Enterprises afloat. He glanced at me slyly.

‘Ah,’ he said, ‘a woman in the case. And you have an eye for her.’

I ignored that. We reached the cars and I tossed a set of keys to O’Fear. ‘I don’t suppose you know which one you drove?’

‘I’d say I drove them all at different times.’

‘We won’t find anything, but let’s take a look.’

‘It’s only right,’ O’Fear said.

We searched the cars thoroughly. The only thing of interest I found was a crumpled sheet of paper ruled up into columns with a space for headings. ‘What would you say this is?’

O’Fear, the old truckie, had no doubt. ‘A log sheet.’

Back in the office, we found Bob Mulholland elbow-deep in paperwork and close to bad-tempered. I put the keys back on the hooks. ‘Sorry to interrupt again, Bob.’

Mulholland grunted.

‘Trouble?’

‘A bit. Riley again, and others.’

I turned to O’Fear. ‘Do you know this Riley character?’

‘I do.’

‘Could it have been something to do with him that night?’

O’Fear shook his head. ‘Wasn’t his place, at least. I’d know that joint drunk or sober from some earlier doin’s Barnes ‘n’ me’d had there.’

Mulholland tapped a pencil impatiently on the desk.

It had been a fairly long day with a few miles covered and many words spoken. I could have worked up a bit of impatience myself, but I held it in check. ‘Could I have a look at the log sheets for the Lasers, Bob?’

He pointed to a stack of thick loose-leaf binders. I flicked through the top sheets in the first binder. The logs showed times, mileage, fuel costs. I patted Anna’s desk and beckoned to O’Fear. ‘Job for you, mate. I want you to sort through these. Do every car. See if you can isolate the night in question and work out the radius of the area you travelled. Know what I mean?’

‘Jesus,’ O’Fear said. ‘Do I have to?’

I slapped him on the shoulder and he winced. ‘Sorry. I think it’s a good idea. Might jog your memory.’

‘And what’ll you be doin’?’

‘Checking on a demolitions man named Brown in St Peters. Think you could’ve been in St Peters that night?’

O’Fear shrugged. ‘A heavenly name for a hellish spot. Shouldn’t we be conducting a big search for the photographs and the bag?’ O’Fear retained the ‘g’ in upmarket words like ‘conducting’.

Tomorrow. Have you got somewhere to stay tonight?’

O’Fear had taken off his jacket and hung it over the back of Anna’s chair. He had the stack of binders in front of him and was clicking a ballpoint pen he’d taken from his pocket. He gave me one of his ingenuous smiles. ‘I thought perhaps your place, Cliff.’

I reminded him of the address and told him where the spare key is hidden. ‘Will you be all right?’

‘Is there drink in the house?’

I said there was.

‘Then I’ll be fine. If I can’t make me way from Botany to Glebe, then it’s time I retired.’ He clicked his pen. ‘I’m not too keen on this, though. I’m a man of action.’

‘We need a man of brains just now.’

‘Well, after all, I’m a graduate of Trinity.’

Mulholland looked up. ‘What pub’s that?’

O’Fear opened a folder. ‘I won’t be disturbin’ your good lady, then?’

‘You remember my wife, O’Fear. The blonde architect? She left ten years ago.’

‘She was never the woman for you, Cliff.’

I still had the log sheet in my hand. I crumpled it and threw it into a wastepaper bin. ‘Her sentiments exactly,’ I said.

Since small business people started installing answering machines, Commander phones and car phones, I’ve almost given up ringing to arrange appointments. There are too many ways they can duck you. A direct approach is best; most people aren’t rude, most are curious. It was late in the afternoon when I arrived in St Peters. Ashley Street was a nondescript thoroughfare, half given over to factories and half to houses that looked as if they had been squeezed onto blocks of land that were too small for them.

Brown amp; Brown presented a long, high brick fence to the street. I could see the superstructure of a couple of cranes and bits of earth-moving equipment poking up into the sky, and the outlines of some buildings that would not have carpet on the floors or paintings on the walls. I parked further down the street and walked back to give myself some time to rehearse what I was going to say. I had it worked out by the time I reached the wide main gate. Brown amp; Brown looked to be doing pretty well. Tyre tracks on the road and drive showed that a lot of traffic had passed through the gate. The brick wall was new. Reddish-brown stains on the cement marked where water had run for years down a rusty tin fence and across the footpath.

A smaller gate further along from the main entrance was set in a recess in the wall; it even had a skimpy overhanging roof. I pressed the buzzer and looked around for the closed-circuit TV lens, but the door swung open before I found it. I went up a cement driveway towards an office building that had a small flagpole standing outside it. The US and Australian flags hung listlessly from the mast. I went through double doors into a functional reception area where posters and photographs on the walls showed the sort of work Brown amp; Brown did. Brick towers were shown crumbling under the force of explosions; giant steel balls reduced brick walls to rubble. The man at the desk was about thirty; he had a tanned face and a mass of wrinkles around his eyes, as if he spent a lot of time squinting in bright sunlight. Big shoulders and neck, cropped brown hair.

‘Can I help you, sir?’

I gave him my card. ‘I’d like to see Mr Marshall Brown.’

He read the card and looked at me with interest. ‘Private detective, eh? Don’t think I ever met one before. Hold on, I did run into one when we were wrecking the brickworks.’

‘What did you run into him with?’

He smiled, showing teeth not as white as those of the workers in the posters. ‘He was from an insurance company.’ He looked down at a typed list on the desk. ‘I think Mr Brown has all the insurance he needs, if that’s…’

‘It’s not,’ I said. ‘Just for interest, if you wrecked a brickworks, what’re you doing here?’

‘Mr Brown thinks everyone should know every part of the business. I’m on a two-week stint here. After that I do vehicle maintenance. Then I can get back to the bulldozer. Have I been polite?’