Private Oz (Private 7)

“Where’re your overalls?”

She lifted a small holdall and tapped it.

Griffin shrugged and stood up, plucked the keys for the apartment from a rack on the wall behind him and passed them to her between orange-stained fingers. “When you’re done drop ’em in the box outside.”

“Will do.” Mary walked out, turned left, headed for the elevator. Emerging on the third floor, she saw Darlene waiting by the door to No. 16 already prepped in plastic overalls and holding her metal box.

Mary unlocked the door, eased it inwards. The place was a pigsty.

“Probably best if you leave me here for an hour, Mary,” Darlene said as she began to pick through the trash lying everywhere.

“Leave you alone around here? You mad?”

“Alright, but if you’re going to nose around, at least put these on.” She plucked a pair of latex gloves from her box of tricks.

Mary went into the tiny kitchen as Darlene busied herself with a pile of detritus on a coffee table in front of a ripped gray velour sofa dotted with cigarette burns. The carpet stank of feet and fried food.

The power had been cut off. In the kitchen the only light came from a tiny window over the sink. She heard a crunching sound underfoot and could make out dried noodles scattered on the cheap tiles.

She walked back into the living-room. Darlene was bagging some cardboard cartons of leftover food, a pair of chopsticks lay against the corner of one. She emptied the ashtray into another bag, sealed it.

“Odd they’ve been so carefree,” Darlene remarked, looking up.

“Show of arrogance,” Mary replied. “Think they’re above the law.”

“In some places they are.”

“Not in my city, they aren’t!” Mary snapped and turned to search the bedroom.

Moments later she called from the doorway, “Darlene?”

“Yep?” She stopped a foot inside the room. Mary had opened the curtains. The sheets were caked in dried blood. “I think we’ve found where Ho Chang’s eye surgery was carried out.”

Chapter 46

GEOFF HEWES PACED around the ten-foot square cellar, swearing to no one, the words echoing back to him.

“That asshole … That fucking bastard, Loretto!” he screamed. “You think you can tell me what I can and can’t do? Me? Geoff Fitzgerald Hewes? I’m a bona fide genius compared to you! You just got lucky, you wop shit. Then you think you can abuse me?” He looked up to the ceiling, imagined Loretto in his wicker chair.

Then he began to weep, the tears streaming down his face.

Chapter 47

Three Months Ago.

JULIE O’CONNOR AND Bruce Frimmel lived in a fleapit, a project apartment in Sandsville in the Western Suburbs – no-man’s land for any respectable Sydneysider. It was a two-room place, cramped living area with a kitchen in the corner, next to that a bedroom, toilet and shower leading off one end. There were bars at the windows, bars at the front door.

Bruce Frimmel was a big guy, six-three, thick arms, hair vibrant red. Julie O’Connor stood five-nine in stockings, big-boned and flabby with straggly bleached blonde hair courtesy of a bottle lifted from the local 7-Eleven. She had bad skin, and six months ago, after seeing a picture of Angie Bowie in the seventies, she’d shaved off her eyebrows. David Bowie had been her idol as a girl.

And Julie loved Bruce. But everything had gone awry.

They wanted a kid, desperately. But nothing was working. So a month ago Julie had gone for an op, an op that had gone spectacularly wrong. She was left infertile, completely and utterly barren. She would never, ever have kids.

Bruce had taken it badly. Very badly.

“What’ya doin’, babe?” Julie asked. She’d just arrived back from her job at the supermarket across the city. Bruce was in the bedroom bent over a ratty old suitcase on the bed. “We win the lottery?” she chuckled nervously.

Bruce ignored her.