Torn Apart by Peter Corris

do. You couldn’t sleep there. It was meant to scare me but it didn’t; I’d been in worse places.
    After a few hours I was moved to a cell with a washbasin, a toilet and a set of metal bunks. A man was lying on the top bunk. He sat up as I came in and his head almost hit the low roof.
    â€˜Got a smoke, mate?’ he said.
    â€˜No. Sorry.’
    â€˜Fuck.’ He lay back down and those were the only words I ever heard him speak.
    I sat on the bunk and prepared myself for a long wait. I doubted that Reimas would try to invoke the terrorism provisions against me. It’d be a thin case and, after recent failures, the police would be wary of taking that course. It might have been different if the substance was anthrax or something similar, but I couldn’t see Patrick as a terrorist. Heroin or cocaine were more probable, I supposed, but the UK didn’t seem a likely source. Also, the terrorism accusation meant involving the federal police, something state cops were always reluctant to do. Sooner or later they’d have to charge me and take me before a magistrate. Couldn’t do that without allowing me legal representation.
    It was a long night. My companion snored and coughed and climbed down three or four times to piss. Prostate trouble and emphysema. At 6 am a Corrective Services officer told him he was going to Parramatta. He groaned and took one last intermittent, trickling piss and was gone.
    Ten minutes later I was given a cup of tea and two slices of toast, both cold. I ignored them. I’d missed my evening and morning meds. I didn’t think that would do me any great harm, but I disliked the feeling of dependency. By ten o’clock the inactivity and lack of human interaction were eating at me. I felt dishevelled and dirty after sleeping in my clothes. I hadn’t shaved for forty-eight hours and my face itched. I was thinking of asking for a razor when I was handed a mobile phone.
    â€˜You look dreadful,’ Viv Garner said.
    We were in an interview room like the one I’d been in before except there was no recording equipment and we both had cups of reasonably acceptable coffee.
    â€˜I’m not at my best,’ I said, but in fact I felt all right, mostly due to relief at being, if not at liberty, not in a cell.
    â€˜I thought when you were . . . forcibly retired, things would calm down. But here we are again.’
    â€˜Keeps you on your toes.’
    â€˜Don’t joke, Cliff. This could be serious.’
    â€˜What was in the chess box?’
    â€˜Steroids. Powerful steroids with built-in masking agents. State of the art or better. Highly illegal. Worth a fortune.’
    â€˜What about this terrorism stuff?’
    â€˜Bluff, to scare you.’
    â€˜They can’t think I had anything to do with steroids.’
    â€˜You’re a gym goer and you’ve had a bypass. You could be looking to regain your former fitness.’
    â€˜Bullshit.’
    â€˜Cliff, they’ve got you forging a signature and opening another person’s mail. And they’re talking about a withholding evidence charge—your old bugbear.’
    I knew what he meant, the failure to tell Welsh about the packages posted from London, and a charge I’d once been convicted on.
    â€˜That’s thin though, isn’t it? I could say I didn’t know about them, or I forgot.’
    Viv shook his head. ‘For some reason, God knows why, they must’ve tracked the parcels. I’m betting they know the stuff was posted from the same place at the same time. You didn’t know much about this cousin of yours, did you?’
    â€˜That’s putting it mildly. Has Sheila Malloy, his wife, been in touch?’
    â€˜She has, and it’s another thing that doesn’t look good if it became known. I only spoke with her on the phone, but from the way she sounded, I’m guessing—’
    â€˜All right, all right. What are they more interested