Bradley drained his can in two massive swallows and popped another. ‘I’ve thought about it a bit. It’s hard to be sure. I’d had a few.’ He tilted the can. ‘And I’m on these painkillers- make me pretty woozy sometimes.’
‘But it was two a.m. on a good, clear night.’
‘Yeah. You seem a reasonable sort of a bloke. What were you before you got into this game? Not a copper?’
‘No. Soldier, timber worker, insurance investigator.’
Bradley nodded approvingly. ‘I reckon he was run off the road.’
I drank some more beer and took a sidelong look at him. He didn’t have the appearance of a fantasist or self-dramatiser. Bitter, but who wouldn’t be? ‘Go on,’ I said.
‘It’s hard to be sure. Take a look. The trees block the road a bit.’
I leaned forward and looked. The drop made the distance hard to judge, but the road couldn’t have been more than a hundred metres away and the view was mostly clear. ‘Where did he go over?’
Bradley took more nuts, chewed noisily and pointed.
A clear stretch went into a wicked bend. A section of the metal siding marking the edge of the shoulder was freshly painted. The trees ringed the road before and beyond the place on which his finger was trained.
‘It’s partly a feeling,’ Bradley said. ‘Or I might have just heard it. I dunno. But I think there was another car or a four-wheel drive… a truck or something, real close… too close. And it kept on going.’
‘And you didn’t tell the police?’
‘Like I say, I was pissed off with them.’ He drank deeply. ‘I phoned Merv Simpson and Clarrie Bent, and they got down there with the extinguishers and the bags pretty smart. I done my duty.’
‘Right.’ The beer was warming up in my hand and not tasting so good, but I drank some more. ‘Did you hear him brake or did he go straight over? Was he skidding? What happened?’
‘Bloody mess,’ Bradley said. ‘Straight over, but there was stuff flying everywhere-barrier posts, branches, you know? Door wide open… Look, you haven’t had any nuts. D’you want this other beer?’
It wasn’t something to take back in triumph to Felicia, but I felt a degree of satisfaction. Something was happening now — the surveillance and break-ins-and this was the first clue that something had happened then. I negotiated the steep roads above Bulli carefully and rejoined Lawrence Hargrave Drive for the drive back to Thirroul. Coal trucks used to hammer along these roads to the risk of everyone else on them, but they’re much quieter now. Good for drivers, bad for the area. The sun was dropping below the scarp, cooling the day down fast. The sea sparkled but there was a brown smudge on the horizon where the pollution drifting down from Sydney meets that coming up from Wollongong. Nowhere’s perfect.
I ran the Falcon through the gates Felicia had opened and parked beside the house. She came to the front door minus the. 22 and seemed pleased to see me. We kissed. She had been shopping. We had a beer and ate grilled fish and salad. She had been to the local library, seen a few acquaintances in the street. Nothing unusual had happened. She seemed tense, though.
‘I have to collect the pictures tomorrow,’ she said. ‘I don’t want anything to happen to them. I’m nervous about it.’
‘I’ll be there. Stopping things from happening’s supposed to be my forte. It’ll be all right.’
We went for a walk on the beach, drank coffee on the deck and went to bed. I had my pistol in its holster rolled up inside my beach towel. She put the. 22 under the bed. We laughed about that and were tender with each other. I was pulled from a deep sleep by the insistent bell of the phone. It was 3 a.m. and the phone was nearest to my side of the bed. I hesitated about answering it, and Felicia reached across me.
‘Yes? Michael? Yes, he’s here.’
She passed the phone to me.
‘Hardy,’ Michael Hickie said, ‘hope this isn’t awkward for you.’
‘It’s all right, Michael. What’s up?’
‘It’s O’Fearna. He’s been stabbed.’
14
Hickie was pretty excited. When he’d calmed down, he told me that he’d started to make the moves to get bail for O’Fear. He hadn’t encountered any serious problems and he had expected his release that day.
‘That is today, you understand? It’s today now.’
‘I understand. What happened?’
‘He got knifed late last night. It happened in one of the recreation areas, I understand. I got the message around eleven. It’s taken me a while to locate you.’
I didn’t ask him how he had managed to do that. ‘Where is he, and how is he?’
‘He’s in the prison hospital. He’s going to be all right, but it was a serious attack. Apparently O’Fearna’s tough and quick. The point is, he can get out today, and he wants to see you very badly. He says you’ve got a lot to talk about.’
‘Is he safe where he is?’
‘I spoke to him on the phone very briefly. He says he’s safe. But he wants you to pick him up tomorrow afternoon.’
‘When’s that?’
‘Two o’clock. At the Bay.’
‘I’ll be there.’
‘He said you would be.’
I thanked Hickie and hung up. Felicia had gone off to make tea. She came back with a tray; I dipped the bag in the water until the liquid was black and sipped it. It tasted like burnt stringybark, but I was able to get some of it down. I told Felicia about O’Fear.
‘What does it mean?’
‘I’m not sure. But something’s happening.’ I told her what I had learned the day before about the way Barnes’ car had left the Bulli Pass road. She sipped her tea and had difficulty in swallowing. ‘Poor Barnes,’ she said. ‘Why didn’t he confide in me?’
‘Either he wasn’t sure about the threat and didn’t want to alarm you unnecessarily, or it was too dangerous.’
‘Bloody men. Always sure they can handle it. Are you the same?’
‘Try me.’
‘I want to stay here for a bit. I wanted it to be with you, but if you can’t stay that doesn’t change anything.’
‘I don’t think you should.’
‘There you are. You want to protect me, is that it?’
I nodded.
‘I don’t want to be protected. Just take a look at yourself.’ She touched my nose and put her index finger on two scars-one on my arm and one on the shoulder. ‘What are they?’
I shrugged. ‘From football.’
‘Rubbish. Gun or knife wounds. You can scarcely look after yourself.’ She was looking at me fiercely. Suddenly she grinned and kissed me. ‘It’s all right. I don’t really mean you’re incompetent or anything, I’m just making a point. I want to live my own life.’
‘I don’t want to stop you, Fel. I just… ‘
‘Shh. You want to haul me back to Sydney and stick me away somewhere I don’t want to be. No way. Look, let’s be logical. You can take the paintings to Sydney and deliver them to Piers Lang. He’ll tell everyone he’s got them. So that should take care of any threat from that direction. Right?’
‘I suppose.’
‘And if all this searching isn’t for the paintings, then they’ve looked through my knickers enough now to know that I haven’t got anything they want. Doesn’t that make sense?’
