The ferry berthed at 8.30 a.m. and Wyatt filed off with the passengers. As usual, he swept the docks, looking for men standing featureless and still in the background. There were men like that in every port in the world, waiting to nab someone in particular or simply watching to see who was new in town, intelligence they might later tie in to a robbery or a killing.
There was no one, but Wyatt had altered his appearance again anyway, this time with a wad of chewing gum in his cheek, a baseball cap on his head and a football-club scarf trailing from his neck. Not that Wyatt knew or cared about football. Everything about football was collective, and Wyatt had never joined or wanted to join or feel part of the herd-a trait that had kept him free and more or less unknown, unreachable and uncorrupted for all of his life.
He caught a taxi. Thirty minutes later he was at the Budget car rental place in the centre of the city, mapping out a route to the little town of Emerald in the hills.
Nineteen
The day began badly with a female duty lawyer at the Magistrate’s Court calling him Terry. Not ‘Mr Baker’, ‘Terry’, as if he didn’t deserve the respect of Mister. Then again, in Baker’s experience of the court system, the only people ever to call him Mr Baker had been the beaks who’d sat in judgement of him.
‘Sit down, Terry,’ she said. ‘That’s the way.’
Baker pulled up a pouchy vinyl chair, orange, scabbed with cigarette burns, and leaned back in it, giving the Legal Aid bitch the once-over. Her name was Goldman, that made her Jewish, and Baker peered at her face for confirmation. Given that your Jew is fond of cash, what was she doing Legal Aid shitwork for? Baker pondered on that for a while, then he had her: classy dresser, sharp brain, the type who likes to slum it once in a while. He grunted, satisfied with his analysis, folded his arms and waited. But he felt twitchy. He badly needed a hit.
The Goldman woman turned the pages of the charge sheet. ‘Assault, theft, threatening behaviour…’
‘You know how they like to throw the lot at you, hope some of it sticks,’ Baker said.
She looked up at him. ‘So, what are you saying, Terry? You’re denying all of it? Is that how we plead you, not guilty?’
Baker rolled his shoulders around, searching for the right words. ‘I was aggravated, wasn’t I?’
‘Aggravated?’
‘Yeah. She come at me.’
‘She attacked you?’
‘Sort of, yeah.’
‘So it was self-defence?’
‘Yeah,’ Baker said.
He watched Goldman pick through his file. Now and then she pursed her lips, made a clicking sound with her tongue, as if she didn’t like what she saw there.
‘Terry, according to your record, you have a drink problem, correct?’
‘I’ve been known to down the odd coldie. Why?’
‘And drugs.’
‘You know,’ Baker said, ‘recreational.’
‘According to a previous assessment, made just six months ago, you were on a downward spiral.’
Downward spiral? Baker stared back at Goldman. ‘What the fuck does that mean?’
‘It means your psychological and physical conditions were deteriorating, Terry. You were obliged to seek treatment at a clinic. According to the clinic, you dropped out after three visits.’
‘I wasn’t sick,’ Baker muttered.
The lawyer clutched the edge of her desk with both hands, leaned toward him across the paperwork. ‘Terry, I’m looking for our line of defence, okay? It’s called mitigating circumstances. A history of drug and/or alcohol abuse can be taken into consideration, helping to account for your actions.’
Baker bristled. ‘What do you mean, abuse? I’m fucking not an alky, not a junkie. Fucking watch it, lady.’
Now she did call him ‘Mr Baker’. Temper up, the bitch spat at him: ‘Mr Baker, I’m appointed by the court to help people who cannot afford a lawyer and who do not wish to conduct their own defence. I’m not deciding guilt or innocence-that’s the court’s job. You’ve got to meet me halfway here. The police prosecutor is going to give you a very hard time. I’ve seen Sergeant Day in action many times. He’ll try to rattle your cage, get you worked up so you look bad in the eyes of the beak. Is that what you want?’
‘No.’
‘No. So why don’t you help me work out a line of defence?’
‘Suit yourself.’
‘Not suit myself. Not suit myself at all. I want you to meet me halfway here.’
Baker frowned at her. ‘It’s a committal hearing, for Christ’s sake.’
‘So? Are you saying you don’t want me to try to find grounds for a dismissal first?’
Baker shrugged.
Goldman pushed on. ‘And if I can’t find grounds for a dismissal, don’t you want a good defence mapped out for when trial time comes around?’
‘I can always shoot through.’
Goldman regarded him coldly across her desk. ‘Do that and you won’t get bail next time you’re picked up.’
‘Maybe there won’t be a next time.’
Goldman’s voice softened. ‘Terry, listen to me. Look at your history: in homes from the age of eleven, juvenile court at fourteen and again at fifteen and sixteen, six months suspended for possession, a community order for going equipped to burgle… At this rate you’ll be the next chicken in the yard at Long Bay, Bathurst or Goulburn.’
Baker flushed. ‘People like you, think you’re so great.’ He wanted to explain what it had been like for him, but the words wouldn’t come, only pictures in his head and hot shame and anger choking in his throat. His father had started fiddling with him on his fifth birthday. Fiddled with his twin sister, too. When they were eleven the old man and the old woman had taken them to Penang, supposedly for a holiday, except they hadn’t stayed long and on the way back he and his sister had worn condoms packed with smack taped to their waists, little angels who wouldn’t arouse the suspicion of customs officers. There had been other trips after that, a lot of the smack finding its way up the old man’s arm-him and his mates-putting them in the mood for a bit of kid-fucking, the old man happy to oblige his mates, two kids already in the house. Baker felt a lot older and wiser than any Legal Aid bitch fresh out of law school, who couldn’t understand why he was wasting himself on dope and booze. If Baker had the words, he’d explain to Goldman that the world looked a lot better skewed than it did real, that the dope and booze blunted the pictures in his head. The seconds went by. He swallowed, caught his breath. He tapped his chest. ‘Think I couldn’t handle the yard? Piss it in, lady.’
She gazed at him calmly. ‘You almost sound as if you welcome the prospect.’
‘Lady, when I go to prison it’s going to be for a fucking good reason, not some pissweak assault charge, theft, whatever.’
They watched each other for a few moments. Some of the heat had leaked away now, as though Baker had stated his case and the duty lawyer hers and the result was a stalemate, maybe mutual regard.
Goldman moved first. ‘Okay, Terry, we’ll do our best with what we’ve got. You’re on the slate for two o’clock. Don’t be late, don’t wander off. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got another dozen people to counsel this morning.’
Baker stood. The action was sudden, the chair crashing over behind him. That embarrassed him-he hadn’t meant it to happen and it must have seemed like aggression or disappointment. He righted the chair, all of his movements contained and careful, and saw only one way of retrieving the situation. He stuck out his hand. ‘Thanks. Much appreciated.’
The duty lawyer was occupied with the papers on her desk and didn’t notice his hand. He made her notice it, leaning completely over the desk and wagging it at the level of her breasts. ‘Mrs Goldman? I just want to say thanks.’
She blinked. ‘Ms, not Mrs.’ Then she shook with him, her hand small, dry and firm, and Baker suddenly felt that the day was on the mend.
He walked down the corridor, past other duty lawyers in other offices, and came to the waiting room. Nowhere to sit. It was a place of writhing children, fat women striking out suddenly, junkies chewing their nails to the gristle, bewildered parents, young car thieves and break-and-enter merchants leaning like James Dean on the walls. Baker looked around in disgust. Behavioural problems, medical and physical disabilities, tears, ethnics in their best suits, not to mention the uniforms, cops and court officers.