Peter Corris - O'Fear

My supposed ally, who also represented $10,000 on the hoof, was wandering about with a knife wound in his side, doing God knows what and in possession of a pistol.

Added to that, I had the new information on Barnes Todd-art charlatan with his wife’s connivance, and war criminal. I felt in less than complete control of the situation.

I got to the office early and rummaged through my files for material on Athena Security Pty Ltd. I had kept a coloured brochure and a form letter suggesting that independent enquiry agents should consider amalgamating with bigger concerns. I had written something rude across the letter. The managing director’s signature at the bottom was a big, bold scrawl-Eleni Marinos. There was a postage-stamp-sized photograph of her beside the letterhead. She had pale skin, blonde hair and light eyes and looked about as Greek as Grace Kelly.

According to the brochure, Athena was the ‘newest, most innovative security firm in the Southern Hemisphere’. It could supply guards, patrols and electronic protection. It had an armed delivery division, a strongbox deposit facility and a security courier service. It could provide enquiry agents, bodyguards, drivers, pilots and debugging experts. Paranoia Paradise. A close and productive relationship with the state and federal police was implied, along with the certainty of insurance cover and legal advisers of an eminence it would be too vulgar to detail.

I looked at the cool, calculating face of Ms Marinos and wondered. I was sure I had seen her in the flesh, but I couldn’t pinpoint the memory. I occasionally went to the functions thrown by the various arms of the security business. At them I had encountered some sharp minds and classy talkers, although after a while the display of, and concentration on, money tended to depress me. Anyway, the roll-up was overwhelmingly male, and Eleni Marinos would have stood out like a diamond in a dustbin. She didn’t look the type to walk her dog in Jubilee Park or drink in the Toxteth. She wouldn’t exactly fit in at the Journalists’ Club where I occasionally went with Harry Tickener. I had never met her-I’d have remembered the name- but I had seen her. Where?

I used the Birko to make instant coffee. I had some instant Turkish I’d been meaning to try and this seemed as good a time as any. I poured the boiling water over the pulverised grounds and obeyed the instructions by adding some sugar. I stirred the cup with a spoon that Helen had lifted from a cafe in Darlinghurst after becoming exasperated at the lousy coffee and inflated prices. I sipped the thick, sweetish brew and, the way a smell or a sound can, the unusual taste triggered the memory. I’d seen Eleni Marinos in a Greek restaurant. Her escort at the time had been Barnes Todd.

I couldn’t remember exactly when it was. More than a year, because I’d been with Helen. We both liked Greek food and this place in Paddington was our favourite. We had been to a film, and the hour was late. Barnes was just leaving and I hadn’t even had a chance to speak to him. But that’s where I had seen her-across a smoky room. I remembered her white skin standing out amid the general swarthiness, and the way she had tossed her blonde hair as she said something to a waiter. In Greek, presumably. Then she had clasped Barnes’ arm and they had gone out.

I stared at the letter and the brochure as I tried to make something out of it. The brochure carried a picture of one of the silver armoured cars that had appeared on the streets in the last few years. They carried a big green ‘A’ on the sides and inspired confidence. The guards wore silver jackets, which the men in the game I knew-ex-cops, ex-soldiers, ex-footballers- wouldn’t have liked. But maybe they had a new breed of armed guard these days. Maybe they were art school graduates or had degrees in communications. All the more reason not to amalgamate.

I phoned Barnes Enterprises and got Anna Carboni.

‘You’re better?’ I said.

She sniffed. ‘No, but I’m back. I’m glad you called. Bob said you mightn’t be needing that work I was going to do after all.’

‘Yeah, sorry, that’s right. Sorry to deprive you. of the overtime.’

‘Don’t worry. I need the time in bed more than the money right now. Does that mean you know what happened to Mr Todd?’

‘Not really. Is Bob there?’

I waited, fiddling with the new dressing on my cut hand. The cut had healed well. I tried some more of the coffee and couldn’t decide whether I liked it or not. When Mulholland came on the line, I asked him if O’Fear had been there that day.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I understood he was going to your place last night. What’s up?’

‘Nothing. I’ve… lost track of him. Did he get anywhere with those logs?’

‘He said it must’ve been a pretty tight run. Fifteen to twenty kilometres the round trip.’

‘Anything else?’

‘No. Hold on… Anna’s waving at me.’ I pushed the coffee aside. ‘She’s miffed,’ Mulholland said. ‘She reckons he made a hell of a mess searching the office.’

‘But did he find anything?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Did he take anything away with him?’

‘Look, brother, I was busy. He called a cab. Said he was going to your place. He went. I wasn’t keeping tabs on him. I just don’t know.’

‘Okay, I’m sorry. I know you’re busy, Bob. A couple more questions. Did Barnes ever have any dealings with Athena Security?’

‘I think so. I don’t know the details. Michael Hickie’d know more about it.’

‘Right. What about Eleni Marinos? Did Barnes ever mention her?’

Mulholland said the name and there was a pause. I heard muttering. When he spoke again his tone was cautious, guarded. ‘Anna tells me he knew her before he was married,’ he said.

‘Knew her?’

Mulholland’s voice was thick with impatience. ‘Sometimes I wonder how you gubbas ever got past the Blue Mountains. Barnes and Eleni Marinos had an affair. Serious, Anna says.’

Michael Hickie’s secretary, Jenny, was still in a job. She told me that Hickie had gone to play touch football.

‘It’s the middle of the morning on a working day,’ I said.

She giggled. ‘That’s when they do it. Michael… Mr Hickie, and some of his friends. He calls it, ah… rebellion as relaxation.’

‘Where do they play?’

‘Waverley Park. I’m sure you’d be welcome. They’re always looking for extra players.’

It had rained overnight and the morning was fresh and clear. The traffic moved well along Bondi Road, and I had no trouble locating the cluster of professional men’s cars near a corner of the park. Out on the grass a group of men huddled, broke apart, ran, jumped and fell. I parked, walked closer, and Hickie spotted me.

He waved. ‘Hey, hey, Hardy. We’re a man short. Want a game?’

I was wearing jeans and sneakers and a clean white shirt, but I had an old T-shirt in the car. The players wore shorts and rugby shirts, tracksuit pants and singlets. I looked them over carefully- no giants or obvious psychopaths. I signalled ‘Yes’ to Hickie, jogged back to my car and changed.

The next forty-five minutes I spent throwing and running and slipping over on the damp turf and laughing. It was a good-natured game among men who were past their physical best but not giving up without a struggle. They ran hard; some of the body contact was accidental, but not all of it. I was faster than a few, heavier than a few others and I held as many passes as I dropped. Hickie and I were playing on opposite sides and we had one heavyish collision. I thought he could have avoided me, but he didn’t, and he came off slightly second best. No ill-feeling. I finished the game well and truly winded, mostly as a result of a last mad dash, and with a slightly bruised shoulder despite the soft going. I remembered games I had played as a kid-under blazing skies on grounds baked rock hard, and in blizzards and ankle deep mud. They were tough games-I’ve still got a scar where some teeth went through my right ear. Back then, as kids, we were proving something to the world. Now we were mostly proving things to ourselves.