paint so that the words were hard to read. The fence enclosed a couple of acres of cement, dirt and scruffy grass. Along one perimeter was a large shed with a serrated roof; nearby were a couple of structures like aircraft hangars as well as smaller sheds and prefabs, all old. But one brick and glass structure was post-World War II. A few vehicles were in evidence- cars, vans, a loaded semi-trailer. There were a couple of sea cargo containers and several high stacks of wooden crates.
I had to jump aside to avoid a truck that raced past me through the gates. The driver jammed on the brakes and the truck threw up water and mud as it skidded through some puddles and stopped near the brick building. Three men wearing grey overalls jumped from the truck. One threw a brick through the window of a van, another began splashing something liquid from a can over the loaded semi-trailer. The first man went to work on truck tyres with a knife and the third ran a cable from the back of the truck towards a stack of crates.
I shouted and ran towards them. Two people came from the building, a man and a woman. The man threw himself at the one with the can and the woman ran in the direction of the nearest shed. When I got there, the man from the building had flattened the petrol splasher, but one of the others had king hit him from behind. He sagged to his knees and his attacker got set to hit him again. He pulled the punch when he saw me and reached into his back pocket. I ducked under his swing and hit him very low with a wild right. The breath rushed from him and I heard metal hit the cement. I kicked him between the legs and he went down. The man with the knife was moving towards me, but I had the feeling he was happier slashing tyres. I grabbed the Stillson wrench the guy I’d put down had dropped and let him come. He stopped and the other two struggled up.
The woman had enlisted two men from the sheds. They were running towards us.
‘Fuckin’ hell,’ one of the attackers said. ‘I’m off!’
He ran for the truck and the other two went with him. I moved to follow them but the guy who had thrown the best punch of the fight was on his feet now. ‘Let the buggers go,’ he said.
They were twenty feet away and in the truck. They had left the motor running. Stop them and we’re talking to the police, I thought. I threw the Stillson and it shattered the passenger side window as the truck roared off, spraying mud, the cable whipping along behind it.
The reinforcements reached us and one of the men sniffed loudly. ‘Shit, that’s petrol.’
‘Are you all right, Bob?’ the woman said.
‘Yes, I’m all right.’ He turned to me. ‘I have to thank you, mate. You were bloody useful.’ He looked to be about fifty or a bit older, with the crinkly hair, dark skin and wide nose of the Aboriginal. He had boxing scars around his eyes and when I shook his hand I felt the lumpy knuckles of the ex-fighter. ‘Who are you, brother?’
‘Cliff Hardy. If you’re Bob Mulholland, I was coming to see you.’
‘That’s me. Yeah, Mike Hickie told me. Excuse me a minute. Geoff, will you do something about the petrol? You’ll need a hose and some sand. Col, can you take a look at the tyres?’
The men nodded. Col was the sniffer. He sniffed again. ‘Great throw with the Stillson, mate.’
‘Lucky,’ I said.
Mulholland brushed dirt from the knees of his grey pants. He wore a white shirt, no tie. Grey hair sprouted at the neck. ‘All in a day’s work. This is Mrs Carboni, Mr Hardy.’
‘Anna,’ she said.
‘Cliff,’ I said.
Mulholland mimed a short left jab and the solid right he had thrown a few minutes before. ‘Let’s go inside. I could do with a cuppa tea.’
We went up a short flight of concrete steps into the brick building which turned out to be the office. There was no air conditioning or interior decoration; it was a large work space with three desks, two computers, filing cabinets and notice boards covered with bits of paper. A couple of big maps of Sydney and suburbs hung on one wall; on another was a large blackboard with times, dates and numbers scrawled on it in chalk. Anna Carboni asked whether I would rather have tea or coffee. I plumped for coffee the way I do a hundred times out of a hundred.
Mulholland settled into a chair and put his feet on the desk quite close to a computer. He gestured for me to pull another chair across. The computer screen was full of figures.
‘Mike said you wanted to know a bit about the business. What you’ve just seen isn’t typical.’
‘I’d be surprised if it was. But you’re not interested in calling the police?’
He shrugged. ‘I didn’t see the number of their truck, did you?’
I tried to remember. ‘I don’t think it had one.’
‘There you are. The cops couldn’t help even if they wanted to, which is only even money. I blame myself. Things’ve been very quiet and I got slack. I should’ve kept a look out. Barnes would have roasted me for leaving those bloody gates open.’
Anna came back from the sink and urn at the far end of the room with three mugs. She gave me mine, Mulholland his and sat at one of the desks. She tapped computer keys.
‘Thanks, Anna, you make a great cuppa.’ Mulholland said.
She smiled. ‘For a wog.’
‘You can’t help being a New Australian.’ He grinned at me, which puckered the smooth scar tissue and made slits of his eyes. ‘Neither can you.’
‘Right,’ I said. Through the window I could see Geoff, Col and another man working in the yard. The big gates were closed. ‘How much did Michael Hickie tell you?’
Mulholland sipped his black tea. ‘About you? Nothing. Just said to help you any way I can.’
‘Barnes thought someone might try to kill him,’ I said. Anna Carboni’s head jerked aside, but she kept her eyes on the screen in front of her. ‘What do you think of that?’ I was addressing both of them, but Mulholland answered.
‘I warned him a coupla times that he was taking too many bloody risks, cutting corners, going at it too fast. But… did you know him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, he did what you’d expect. Tightened the security around here and other places and made sure the accident insurances were paid up, but he didn’t do a bloody thing about his personal safety. What brings you into it?’
I told him while he finished his tea.
‘Drink your coffee before it gets cold.’ His voice, gruff and harsh, as it is with most older Aborigines, sounded almost hostile. ‘I wish he’d told me he felt that way. Maybe I coulda helped him. Given it a bloody good go, anyhow.’
I drank the coffee. Anna Carboni had stopped working; she gazed across the top of the computer monitor. ‘He was a strong man,’ she said. ‘The best I ever worked for.’
Mulholland nodded. I told them that Felicia Todd was having discussions with Hickie about the future of the business. They listened and seemed comforted. Anna was in her forties-these were not good times for people at their stage of life to be thrown out of work. I explained that I wanted a rundown on the business: number of employees and details about them, long-term contracts, new jobs, sub-contracting, competition.
‘Do you know who your visitors today were, for instance?’
‘I’d guess they were from Riley’s,’ Mulholland said. ‘Just a dumb stunt to keep us on the ropes.’
‘Who’s Riley?’
‘Big operator. One of the biggest, before Barnes came along and undercut him and provided a better service right across the board. Riley had a big slice of trucking, storage and house removal, all dovetailed but bloody expensive and ratshit managed.’
‘What’s house removal?’
‘It’s all the go. People want old houses off their land to build new things, other people want houses already built. We cut ‘em in half and move ‘em on low loaders. Supply and demand.’
‘Sounds tricky.’
‘It is, but there’s money in it. Riley had councillors in his pocket all over the state. Coppers too. Big kickbacks all round. You need council approval, see? And police co-operation on the roads. Barnes went to the local MPs and the straight councillors and got the game cleaned up. Riley didn’t like it.’
‘This seems like a pretty crude operation for a big wheel.’
‘Riley’s like that. We’ve lost a lot of business since Barnes died. I’ve had to put people off. Riley’s picked up
