I peered through a crack in the fence. The old cat was stretched out there in the sunshine with ants clustered on the bowl of curdled milk and I could see that he needed a good feed but at least was getting a nice snooze in the sun. The shed door was closed though a piece of fabric draped over the inside of the window had sagged, allowing me to see Twigg moving around inside. My mobile chimed and I grabbed it. My friend on the inside, alerting me that the arresting officers were on their way.
I didn’t have long to wait. I saw a tall guy in uniform and a middle-aged detective walking down through the garden, from the front of the property. The cat sat up as the two men made their way through the long grass, watching warily as the uniformed officer rapped on the door. Twigg opened it, his scowl speed-changing from irritation to disbelief. Before he could speak, the uniformed officer grabbed him and cuffed him while the detective presented the warrant for his arrest in the matter of the murder of Dudley Russell O’Dea.
“What are you talking about?” Twigg yelled, struggling. “Murder? I don’t know anyone called O’Dea! There’s been a mistake. Get your hands off me!”
They dragged him out of the shed, easily managing him between the two of them. Twigg was yelling, “You’ve got the wrong man! I don’t even know him!”
“You know him well enough to leave your fingerprints at the crime scene, Ronny,” said the detective.
The cat suddenly bolted around the shed and disappeared into the long grass, frightened by the yelling.
“You can’t just haul me off like this. Who’ll look after my cat?”
“Stuff your cat, Ronald,” said the detective. “That’s the least of your troubles.”
I jumped onto a bin, climbed over the fence, and dropped to the other side, taking the police and Twigg by surprise. “Stay back, sir,” said the detective. “This is police business.”
“Sure,” I replied, “happy to comply. But I just wanted a word with my fishing mate before you take him away. You’re worried about your cat, Twigg? Probably kinder for it to be put down. It’s not in a good state.”
Twigg paused in his struggles, trying to make sense of what was happening. Then, with all the years of pain, rage, and frustration concentrated into one laser-like beam of fury, I said, “If you’re so worried about your cat, why don’t you just... cut his throat?”
For a few long seconds I stared at Twigg’s face before hauling my bulk ungracefully back over the fence. Then I chinned myself up and looked at Twigg being dragged toward the front of the property.
He had twisted around between the two officers and when he saw me his face registered shock and bewilderment. He tried to jerk away from the arresting officers, screaming his head off. And I knew then that he was desperately scanning his memory, trying to place who it might be among his jailbird mates to whom he’d so foolishly big-noted himself when he was a stupid kid, who’d set him up like this, and trying to work out how the man he’d been fishing with seemed to know about a nineteen-year-old murder. I also hoped that years later, if he ever worked out who I was, the prison officers would say, Sure, Ronny, pull the other one. In that moment, I felt the deep satisfaction that, although a long time coming and in a very elliptical fashion, justice had finally been done.
I went home with the cat under my arm and I put him in the laundry with some water, a dirt tray, and a nice bream fillet. I thought I could hear him purring as I closed the laundry door.
Black Cul-De-Sac
by Philip McLaren
Redfern
It is around two a.m. and dark; council workers stopped replacing streetlights in this narrow alley behind the old Chippendale brewery years ago, it is simply too dangerous. Stoning outsiders is commonplace for the youth down here in the slums, and good sport. The same goes for most other cul-de-sacs in the aboriginal enclave of Redfern at night: black.
Pools of several too-bright LED flashlights survey the area adjacent to the bloodied, spread-eagled body. As police vehicles arrive, headlights are left on as well as the rotating red, white, and blues, and wipers — the autumnal tropical deluge has been bucketing down for days.
I push past the first line of cops, flashing my ID card as I go, sheltering under my large golf umbrella. I am the first person police call regarding black deaths; it’s protocol. I’m black. I’m the aboriginal liaison for this region; a politically appointed watchdog, I watch cops and how they deal with aboriginal people. The history of black deaths in custody sparked a demand for oversight. The lifeless man lying in the alley is also black.
I’m from the Kamilaroi Nation. Both my mum and dad are Kamilaroi, from Coonabarabran and Gunnedah in the western region of the state, but I was born in rundown Redfern thirty-two years ago. I still live here but on the other side, it’s not as tough over there, went to school and university just up the road, played all my football here.
The middle-aged plainclothes senior detective at the center of the group looks up as I approach. Dicky Henderson is his name, Tricky Dicky, looks like Nixon too.
“Hey, Craig, good to see you. Now I can go back to bed.” He is only half-joking. He puts on that counterfeit smile. He knows it annoys me. Fuck!
“G’day.” I force a phony cheery note into my voice.
“You reckon this is a good day? It’s a bit fucking wet.”
I ignore him. I walk to the body and flash some LED of my own. So much blood and so much money, fifty-dollar bills all strewn about, then I see the battered face. “Oh shit.”
“Know him?”
“Yeah... I know him. He’s my cousin.”
“Sheeet, all you guys are cousins.”
There is much to irritate me in this man’s voice. “No, really, Dicky.” He hates me calling him that. “He’s my first cousin. I saw him last night at my aunt’s place.” I pause and lower my voice. “His name is Lally Cameron. He lives... lived a bit farther up this street, over there, second house from the end.” I point to the house.
All the residents of the street are looking on, mainly black faces, while kids and adults are being interviewed by uniformed cops.
I sit on my haunches for a closer look. Fuck! He’s been seriously bashed, very seriously bashed, something solid has been used on his head and upper torso, a tire iron maybe. His skull has been cracked open and pieces of his brain sit on the wet asphalt, his half-empty cranium is full and spilling rainwater; some teeth cling to his gums. A nauseating odor comes from the mess.
“Sorry, mate.” Dicky’s speech is muffled. He is one of those old codgers who barely moves his lips to talk. “Were you close?”
“Yeah, kind of, there were Christmases and holidays. We grew up together.”
Dicky looks up the street as I speak. I guess he is trying to figure out who Lally’s family are from the drenched rabble.
“Yeah, he lived with us for a while, just him, for a whole school term, don’t know what was going on in his family at that time. He was five years older than me. There’s a big Coonabarabran mob here in Redfern, all related. A few other Coonabarabran families live on this street as well as the Camerons.”
Just then the FSG — forensic science group — arrive and shepherd us away from the body. A taped-off no-go zone is being established. I push up against the high brick wall of the brewery; Dicky follows suit. The rain continues.
“Do you want to work with us on this or...?” He leaves the question dangling.