of his face. He had a barely touched pint of beer in front of him and a cigarette in his hand, but he didn't look drunk or as if he was about to do anything. He just stared and hated.
The next photo in the sequence was only moments later and covered the same scene, but the man was gone and Patrick had taken a breather. I ran off a copy of the photo. In the old days I'd have opened a file and the photo would have gone into it. But that was then and this was now. I pinned the ceilidh photo and the one of Patrick with his fiddle to the corkboard in the kitchen where I could look at and think about them.
James O'Day and assorted members of the Currawongs, their road crew and girlfriends, occupied a big terrace house in Newtown close to Camperdown Park. I rolled up at about 7 pm with half a slab of beer-the acceptable calling card. A young woman let me in and took the beer. She wore modified goth gear-black clothes and shining metal-but didn't have the sullen, the-world-is-a-shitheap look. I actually got a smile.
'James is in the kitchen,' she said.
'Cooking?'
'I wish. We've got pizza coming. I thought you were it.'
'Sorry.'
She smiled again, her lip ring glinting in the light, and lifted the beer. 'You're welcome.'
I followed her down the passage past a couple of rooms, one with a whiff of marijuana leaking out. The kitchen was galley-style, made spacious by a wall being knocked out and an archway constructed. There was a big pine table in the centre and an even bigger antique oak butcher's bench along one wall. Speakers hung at various points around the room and most of the surfaces were covered with magazines, books, newspapers and CDs.
'Your visitor, James,' the woman said, 'bearing gifts.'
O'Day was in his early forties, middle-sized and lean. His Aboriginal ancestry was becoming more pronounced with the passing years. He seemed darker and heavier around the brows than when I'd last seen him. He wore a few marks of other men's fists on his face, but not many. He was sitting at the table tapping on the keyboard of a notebook computer.
'Cliff, good to see you, brother. Saw you at the Moody fight. Still interested in the sweet science, eh? This is Vicki.'
'Now and then, Jimmy. Hello, Vicki.'
She'd taken the tops off three of the stubbies in a matter of seconds. She handed me one. 'Hi, Cliff,' she said. 'Is this going to be, like, secret men's business?'
O'Day looked up from the screen, accepted the stubby and shook his head. 'Don't reckon. Hey, Cliff, what's a good rhyme for silver?'
I sat and drank. 'There isn't one.'
'No shit?' Vicki said. 'Bet there is. I'll Google it.'
O'Day laughed as she left the room. He logged off and took a swig. 'Good chick, Vic. Shit, I've got rhymes on the bloody brain. What's the reason for the very welcome visit, man?'
'D'you remember a gig you did a few years back at some pub in Hamilton? There was a fight and a fire.'
'Yeah, at the Miner's Arms. That was a bad scene. A woman died, I heard. We got out okay, in fact we helped a few people get out.'
'Who was the owner, or the licensee?'
'One and the same-bloke named Reg Geary.'
'You had dealings with him, did you? What was he like?'
'He was a prick-very tight with a buck. We didn't get paid for the gig. That was natural, I suppose, under the circumstances. We worked there again later, but not for him.'
'How was that?'
'We did a benefit to help them raise money to rebuild the pub. Glad to do it. We had a big following there.' He took another pull on the stubby. 'Why the questions?'
'I was wondering whether he could've been responsible for something that happened here a few days ago. A mate of mine got shot.'
'In Glebe. Yeah, I read about that and saw it on the news. Didn't connect it with you, but. That's rough. Sorry. As I said, Reg was a real bastard and I know he was bitter about what happened. Not just about his wife. I heard that he'd fucked up the insurance somehow and blamed everyone but himself. He lost the pub. He might've been crazy enough to do something like that, I suppose.'
'So he's not in Hamilton anymore?'
'No, he came to Sydney. Tried to get into promotion. Hang on.'
He found his mobile under a CD and punched in some numbers. 'Calling my agent. Hello, Gordon, James. Yeah, look, d'you know how to get in touch with Reg Geary? What? Of course I'm not wanting to work for him. Mate of mine wants to see him about something. Yeah, yeah, that right? Okay. Thanks, Gordie. See you Saturday.'
He rang off, drained his can and scribbled on the back of a magazine. 'Gordie says Geary's in a psychiatric unit in Marrickville. The cops booked him in yesterday after he assaulted a woman at some event he'd tried to promote. Here's the address.'
He tore off the corner he'd written on and handed it to me. 'A nutter. Could be your guy.'
7
You don't just wander up to a psychiatric facility, ring the bell, and ask to speak to an inmate. In the old days, when I was on passable terms with some of the police, I could've found out who arrested Geary and possibly got access to him that way. Not anymore. My doctor, Ian Sangster, wears a number of hats. I made an appointment to see him in the morning.
'Hammond Psychiatric Unit in Marrickville, Ian,' I said. 'Know it?'
'I know of it. I don't think you're a candidate for it quite yet.'
'Very funny. I want to talk to someone there.' 'In connection with what?' 'What else? Patrick's murder.' 'Let me make some phone calls.'
Ian got back to me a few hours later saying that he'd spoken to a doctor at the unit who was willing to allow me a short interview with Geary that afternoon, with an emphasis on the short.
'Dr Galena Vronsky,' Ian said. 'A very good clinician. Could be your type, come to think of it.' 'What did she say about Geary?'
'Nothing much, just that he's a violent paranoid schizophrenic resistant to medication. Have fun.'
Dr Vronsky was a slim, dark woman in her thirties. She was classically beautiful with violet eyes and sculptured features. She wore the standard white coat over a crisp blue blouse and a dark skirt, medium-heeled shoes. She sat me down in her office and I told her why I wanted to see Geary. I left out certain details, although there was something compelling about her and it felt almost shameful not to tell her the whole truth.
'How would you propose to go about questioning him, Mr Hardy?'
'I don't think I'll have to do much. Patrick Malloy and I were almost identical physically. If he killed Patrick and sees me he's bound to show some kind of reaction.'
'Possibly, but he's a very disturbed individual, so much so that it could be very difficult to read his reaction.'
'Do you think what I'm suggesting could do him any harm?'
She smiled and the temperature in the cold room seemed to lift. 'I'm glad you asked that. Ian Sangster vouched for you and your stocks just went up with me. No, I don't think so. He needs detoxing and medicating, and even then…'
She got up. 'Come on, and don't forget I'm in control of this.'
I followed her through a series of passages with rooms on both sides. Some were open and looked more like motel rooms than cells. The place was no bedlam, closer to a sedate rest home. We passed a recreation area where a couple of men were playing table tennis while others were bent over hands of cards. Dr Vronsky opened the door to a warm, glassed-in sunroom. Three men were sitting in armchairs staring out at an expanse of grass. An orderly in a tracksuit sat in a corner working on a crossword puzzle.
Two of the men turned to look at us as we entered and one nodded a sort of greeting. The third man continued
