Free Wyatt - 04 - Cross Kill by Garry Disher Page A

form of a
hexagon, the open ground in the middle crisscrossed with sheltered walkways.
There were smudges that were trees and several lines of cheery text about the
philosophy of the place. American and Australian money was behind it. You
learn something new every day, Eileen said. What are the screws like in a
place like this?

    The woman put her little hands
together in her lap and tightened her little mouth. We dont call them screws,
we call them

    A screws a screw, Rossiter said,
then stopped, irritated with himself for getting involved. Eileen cut in: When
can we visit him?

    Tomorrow morning, if you like.

    Ross said no, so on Thursday morning
Eileen drove herself in the VW. The Bolte Remand Centre was on a grassy plain
west of the city, close to Melton, close to muddied tracts of land where unsold
houses reproduced themselves among billboards, snakes of bitumen and ribbons of
new kerbing. But there were also established estates with Hills Hoists in the
backyards, cars in the carports, tricycles on the pockets of lawn, and Eileen
guessed that those people had things to say, living right next door to a
prison.

    She saw the razor wire first, coiled
around the perimeter fence, viciously reflecting the sun. There were several
inner fences, heavy gates, then the low buildings with their corrugated roofs
and barred windows, everything new looking, all metal, no wood anywhere and no
grass to speak of. What she really hated, what she could feel winding and
slicing around her body, was the razor wire. It was slung across fences and at
ground level around the buildings as if someone had opened a lid on a box of
evil objects.

    It took her forty-eight minutes to
pass through to the visiting room. Inside the Bolte it was one door after
another and all of them heavy, locked. There were screws for escorting, screws
for buzzing the doors open, screws for poking around in your handbag, patting
you down, running a metal detector over you. The screws seemed more dead than
alive, but sullen and dangerous with it. They were overweight, and if they
spoke the accents were Pommie. One man ran his metal detector idly over the
brass end of a fire hose, and the squawl set Eileens nerves on end. He did it
again, he did it ten times while Eileen waited to be buzzed through. There were
plenty of people milling around, Eileen didnt know who they were, and for some
reason none of them minded that hellish sound.

    She waited at a plastic table,
plastic so you couldnt brain anyone with it. There were wives, sweethearts, a
couple of whole families in the visiting room. Niall swaggered, curling his
lip, as he came in from the cells, but when he saw her he dropped the act and
she could see the anxiety under it. There were others like him in the Bolte, a
brotherhood of skinheads, so she hoped there were people to protect him in the
showers, but still, under it all he was only twenty-one. Like half the men in
the place he wore shorts, blue stubbies, work boots and an institution-brown
windcheater. She leaned over and kissed him. Hello, son.

    Good on you, Mum. The old man
wouldnt stir himself?

    Hell get over it.

    He must have a short memory. Hes
done more time than Ill ever do.

    You can see his point, though, son.
What possessed you to wave that crossbow around?

    Fuckin wog had it coming.

    Eileen let it go. They shouldve
given you bail.

    Then Nialls face crumpled. I cant
stick it, Mum. Not again. He grabbed her forearm and dropped his voice. Cant
we give them Wyatt? You know, dont let on to the old man weve done it?
Christ, Wyatt should be worth every bloke in here and half the blokes in
Pentridge.

    Eileen put her hand over his. Shed
been playing with this idea herself.

    Hes got to be putting a job
together, Niall went on. He didnt come around just to apologise and chat
about old times.

    Eileen knew exactly what Wyatt had
in mind. Ross had let it slip. Late at night, in the comfort and darkness, his
bony flank cushioned against her, Ross liked to