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gave a snort. ‘That’s what Mrs Eichmann said.’ He rubbed his stomach.
    ‘What if Quinn went out, knocked him and planted the gun and the shit?’ I said.
    Barry gave me a long look, shaking his head. His eyes were light green, with little dark flecks. ‘Jack,’ he said. ‘Jack, he’s an officer with sixteen years’ service. You take my meaning?’
    ‘No.’
    He got out of the car and leaned in. ‘He’d have knocked him somewhere less public. Mate, I got to go. I’m further up shit creek if I don’t get to town in about five minutes.’
    ‘I’ll be in touch. Buy you a drink,’ I said.
    Barry put his head back in the window. ‘Drinks, mate, drinks. You’re dealing with the old culture here.’
    ‘Danny’s dead,’ the old woman said through the small opening. ‘Who’re you?’
    I was standing on the leaking porch of a weatherboard house in Richmond. I’d got the address from a prison officer I knew from the days when I visited clients in Pentridge. The prison records had Mrs Mary McKillop, aunt, as Danny McKillop’s next of kin. I looked her up in the phone book: it was the number Danny had left on the machine. Sue McKillop hadn’t known the aunt was alive and had no idea how to find the cousin she’d mentioned.
    ‘Mrs Mary McKillop?’ I said.
    ‘He’s dead,’ she repeated. ‘Whad’ya want?’
    ‘I’m a lawyer. I’d like to talk about Danny.’
    ‘Danny’s dead. Bugger off.’
    The two-inch opening closed with a crack. I stared at the door’s peeling green paint for a while, thinking about trying again. I could still smell the ancient fumes of boiled cabbage and cat piss and decaying ceilings that had leaked out when the door opened. That decided the issue. But as I turned the door opened a sliver.
    ‘Try next door.’
    The door closed again.
    I tried the house to the right. A thin woman in her forties with lank, dead hair answered my knock. She blinked at me as if unaccustomed to light.
    ‘I’m making inquiries about Danny McKillop,’ I said.
    She looked at me for a long time, then she put her hands in the pockets of her pink housecoat. ‘He’s dead. Was in the paper.’ Her voice was toneless.
    ‘It’s his cousin I’d like to talk to.’
    She looked at me in silence.
    ‘It’s about the accident Danny went to jail for. It’s possible he didn’t do it.’
    She waited.
    ‘There might be some compensation.’
    She cleared her throat. ‘You’d better talk to Vin. He’s Danny’s cousin. He’s not here.’
    ‘Is he Vin McKillop?’ I said.
    She nodded.
    ‘Do you know where I could find him?’
    She thought for a while, then said, ‘Suppose he’s working. Only time he gets up before twelve. Dennis Shanahan in Edge Street’ll know.’
    I found Dennis Shanahan in the phone book. A woman said he was demolishing a building in Abbotsford, Joseph Street.
    There were three middle-aged men, a teenage boy and a lean brindle dog with a studded collar on the site. I could see them all from across the road. One man was sitting in the cab of a truck behind the shell of the single-storey building, the second was prising out a window with a crowbar, the third was feeding a fire of old timbers in the back corner. The teenager was cleaning bricks with a hammer and chisel. The dog was watching him. A portable radio somewhere in the ruin was putting out ‘Bridge over Troubled Water’ at full volume.
    I crossed the road and walked along a plank bridging the exposed floor beams to the first doorway in the passage. A smell of poor lives hung over the place: cooking fat, yellow feet, burnt ironing boards and blocked drains.
    ‘I’m looking for Vin,’ I shouted to the window remover. He made a gesture with his thumb without looking around.
    I guessed the man in the truck would be the boss, so I tried the man at the fire. I couldn’t get close: the heat was intense. It didn’t seem to bother the man feeding it. He was short, heavyset, with dark curly hair and sideburns, probably in