11

I KEPT the needle on one hundred and ten, the window open, and the radio blaring a song I didn’t know. Melbourne was in my sights. I was squinting because — of course — I’d left the designer sunglasses in Ranik’s car. I glanced at the contraband mobile phone, still in the ziplock bag, lying on the front passenger seat.

About an hour outside Melbourne, I took an exit and entered a sleepy town with a pub, a petrol station, and a couple of sun-bleached weatherboard houses. There was also a park with a fancy raised flowerbed, a cannon, and a drinking fountain. A sign thanked the local Rotarians for this charming community facility. Not a living soul stirred. Two cars outside the pub were the only signs of life. I pulled over and inspected the phone. Older-model android, a crack in the screen. I pressed the power-on button to no avail.

I walked to the servo and bought a bottle of water, an android charger that used the car’s lighter port, and a discounted CD of Led Zeppelin hits. On my way out, I spotted a rack of sunglasses. I twirled the swinger, tried on a couple, and ended up buying a pair of wraparound speed-dealer Oakleys.

The Mazda lighter was missing. I plugged in the charger and waited to hear a ping of connection in Joe’s phone. Nothing happened. No green lightning bolt or other sign of recharging. The lighter port in the Mazda was stuffed. And there was no point taking the charger back and getting one for a USB port; a car this old didn’t have that kind of thing. The phone would have to wait. I put on the sunglasses and slotted the CD into the player.

With a seventies British scream and a frenzied guitar riff, I was set to go. No, I wasn’t. Something buzzed. I turned the music off and checked my phone. Phuong had sent me a photo. A selfie in a hairdressing salon. Caption: new do. Long single strands of black silky hair clung to the plastic cape. Top quality hair, that. Over the years, I’d admired and even envied that which was now so recklessly discarded. Her smile was broad, as if this sharp pixie cut was the ultimate liberation, her spirit now free. And holy shit — how was it possible? — she was even more kick-arse. There’d been no warning, no I’m thinking of cutting, no ugh my hair. Just bam! Gone. I hurriedly responded with hearts and applause and champagne symbols. She answered with instructions to meet her at a new bar near her place, including a choice of directions, in case one was congested, and best parking prospects.

I responded with a thumbs up. Drinking was a brilliant idea. In fact, I wondered how I’d allowed my drinking to lapse so badly these past few days. Any sane person in my position would be shickered from morning till night.

Winds from the inferno of the central Australian desert had scorched the lower east of the country all day, and the heat had reached its zenith around three in the afternoon. Then, the wind direction shifted from north to south, and brought the chill of the Antarctic. This was summer weather. But these days, autumn was summer, up was down, and truth was lies.

By the time I hit Ascot Vale around five-ish, the air temperature was refreshingly benign, but my place was still an oven. I went through the flat, opening every window. Loretta was absent, and I assumed she had decided to take Nigel for a walk now the change had come.

In the safety of my secure domain, I took Joe’s phone from its plastic bag. It was a thing of beauty. A sacred relic. With this object I might secure my very life. Surely, it would please Percy Brash. Surely, he would recognise its value. And, verily, he would let me be.

I plugged the phone into my own charger and connected it to a power outlet beside the couch. Then I hid the phone under a copy of Gourmet Traveller. I’d bought it on a whim, thinking Brophy and I might one day travel to some far-off place: stay in a posh converted Indian palace, or laze around a villa on an Aegean cliff, or island hop in the South Pacific — anything as long as it was an improvement on the holidays of my childhood. Those were caravanning horror stories that still gave me nightmares.

Next, I rang Kylie and left her a voicemail to the effect that I was the world’s best sister and the papers were signed. She was welcome.

There was plenty of time before I was due to meet with Phuong. And, since Joe’s phone would take some time to charge, I decided to check in at work. Besides, I had printing to do.

Fridays at WORMS were casual and relaxed. Sometimes, we knocked off early and had a few beers in the tea room before we went our separate ways. Other times, the place was cleared on the dot of five, with recently vacated desk chairs still spinning in the darkened office. Today, apart from Fatima in her office, I had the place to myself, and much googling to do, kicking off with Enrique Nunzio.

Media hits said the South American was a former cattle farmer with an interest in agri-tech. I trawled puff and guff about how he was headhunted by BS12 to work at Athol Goldwater, their flagship prison-farm-cum-tech-lab model. I saw nothing of note. Then, an old article on an incidence of biosecurity breach popped up. Nunzio’s name was obliquely associated with a scam to import South American bovine blood products and relabel them as Australian, with the aim of on-selling the products at a huge profit. Even the CSIRO had been fooled. Nunzio denied all knowledge of it and had threatened to sue. Such threats were a sign of guilt, I baselessly concluded as I hit print. Here was a nice bone to throw to Marcus Pugh: Enrique Nunzio might be your scam-artist on the payroll. Had no one done a background check? It seemed pretty inept.

That gave me the idea to examine the administrative structures around the prison, and I started with Pugh. His press releases came up — boring! — with links to the departments and agencies under his command. I looked up key senior personnel and viewed the images: Justice Department secretary, a middle-aged white man; Police Commissioner, a middle-aged white man; members of the parole board, middle-aged white men. Better was the ratio of the Supreme Court of Victoria Justices, starting with the Chief Justice, who was an actual woman. And a smattering of women were on the Court of Appeal.

The organisational chart for Corrections Victoria showed the executive team: a family tree of homogenous Anglo male faces. Deputy Commission of Prisons, boring white dude. Contract manager, Mark Lacy, was also a boring white dude. In his photo, Lacy faced the camera with a confident smile, his red hair, thinning on top, combed back, his red moustache neatly trimmed. I remembered the name. He’d had a meeting with Ranik at Athol Goldwater today.

According to Lacy’s profile, he oversaw delivery of every out-sourced prison service for Corrections Victoria: prisoner transport, youth detention, prisoner monitoring, home-detention systems, remand, and all private prison contracts. He was the image of a man without a care in the world. An old-school public servant with the confidence of a person who understood that if something was not accomplished today, there would always be tomorrow. If some aspect of contract management ran into difficulty, well, the government of the day, not the public servants, would pay the price. He looked like a man with all his ducks in a row.

After a quick search for numbers, I discovered that the system-wide costs of male prisons in Victoria was around eight-hundred million dollars. A big budget, and Lacy managed it all — awarded all the contracts. Try as I might, I couldn’t find the cost of the BS12 contract.

I switched focus back to personnel, to Ranik. He’d had a long boring admin career and had been employed by BS12 at various sites since 2015.

Tuffnell: Nothing much. A cleanskin BS12 employee. Her Facebook page was a series of cringe-inducing self-portraits in resort-wear, beach-wear, swim-wear, eye-wear, head-pieces, statement pieces, and leisure-wear. Nell Tuffnell liked cruises and novelty over-sized cocktails. Nell like her nails long, in fun colours. She sometimes got too much sun.

I hit print on everything but Tuffnell’s Facebook photos. While the printer was spitting out former trees, I took a new purple folder from the stationery cupboard and using a big fat texta wrote Pugh/ Prisons on the front. If anyone questioned me for researching these people at work, in work time, using work things, I’d say it was part of my inspection-team duties.

I replaced the cap on the marker just as my phone buzzed with an incoming text.

Brash: tick tock

My heart lurched.

‘How was the prison?’

‘What?’ I screamed.

Fatima sat beside me. ‘Sorry to startle you.’

I pretended to laugh. ‘Oh no! I’m fine, I mean, good. Prison was good.’

She didn’t say anything. I looked down at my desk.

‘Anything else to tell me?’ she asked.

She had something in mind, but I was hopelessly oblivious. The work of WORMS had not been at the top of my priorities for days, possibly weeks. I shook my head.

‘No?’

Would it be unprofessional, I wondered, to ask for a hint?

‘How’s the presentation coming?’

‘Presentation?’

Her cheeks puffed, and she slowly pushed the air out. ‘The one you’re delivering next Thursday morning to the other agencies. We spoke about it. It’s all in the email I sent you.’

I pretend-laughed again. ‘Just kidding. Of course I remember.’

‘It’s not a joke. This is a whole new direction for us. I’m expanding the agency’s work to include an inter-agency support role. It’s an adjacent business that targets other agencies, provides mentoring, administrative advice, grant-writing assistance, cooperative planning, mutually harmonious projects, information sharing, and professional-development training. A favourable reception for your address is vital to its success.’

My mind was blown. I had no inkling of this new direction. When she left me, I dropped the Pugh/Prisons file into the bottom drawer of my desk, and I opened her email.