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uncertain what to say, or how to react. He managed to stammer something out in the corridor five seconds later. ‘I just want to tell you I’m grateful,’ he said, and stuck out his hand.
    But Tanner made no move to take hold of it. ‘Well, I reckon you ought to be.’
    Gus let his hand fall back to his side. ‘Well, I am,’ he said, transferring the sweat from his palms to the backs of his trousers. ‘I owe you. Like I said, I reckon I’m grateful.’
    â€˜Bravo, lad.’
    â€˜Thanks,’ said Gus, and turned his face slightly to hide his relief.

M AY 1967
    Charlie walked the length of Hyde Park until the Archibald Fountain was set squarely at his back, under a long curling arch made of sun-blackened branches. He stopped at the mouth of Macquarie Street and breathed in the scent of the Pacific as it blew in off the Harbour, tousled the brim of his Panama hat, and swept the grit on the footpath back and forth in a lullaby swoosh.
    He had recently secured bail for his client, Raymond ‘Ducky’ O’Connor and he’d spent the rail journey back to Sydney from Melbourne attempting to ignore the glaring reality that the foul-smelling dwarf was quite criminally psychotic. For his part, Ducky had gone back to his old ways with a vengeance, cock-waltzing bars, standing-over bludgers and hoons, rolling punters, drunkards and toothless old geezers, and kicking molls, like footballs, along the length of the Doors. Between such activities (intended, for the most part, Charlie supposed, to offset the bulk of his upcoming legal costs) he also found time to ring Charlie upwards of nine times each day and was forming an unnerving habit of turning up on his doorstep, wielding a cutthroat razor or a sawn-off shotgun, and without an appointment.
    But, considered in plain daylight, the considerable gratuity he had derived from the successful resolution of the Melbournematter had put his practice on an even keel. One or two new clients had trickled in through his door and some of his more regular offenders had (thankfully!) returned to nefarious pursuits. He had met the arrears he owed to his landlord, Crick, Humbert & Co, and had paid the rent on the premises for more than one month. This sudden lack of indebtedness made him feel buoyant.
    Charlie swung left into Martin Place, then left again into Castlereagh Street, for a meeting with his new friend Frank Browne at the Hotel Australia.
    Charlie had devoted much thought to the affairs of Dick Reilly, and though his thoughts on this matter had been hazy at first, he had eventually concluded that he couldn’t do better than seek out Browne, with the object of asking for some particular advice. Browne was one of a new breed of PR consultant, a notorious muck-raker and well-known dabbler in politics, who made most of his money in the shadowlands between business and government. He spoke out the side of his mouth, and drank regularly at the Long Bar of the Hotel Australia, where a few of his political cronies would stop by. Recently, Charlie had become known in such circles as a man with a hankering after some political manoeuvring.
    Charlie wasn’t so naive as to announce his desire to stand as a candidate (let alone anything higher), but nursed a faint, secret hope that, on the strength of the talents he so obviously had, and the friends he was making, that he might find his way into Parliament. As to political views, his own were mild if not altogether malleable. He had once professed some interest in Labor, seeking the liberation of the toiling masses when he himself was oppressed, but now he was bent on raising himself above the general ruck, he was divesting himself of unsuitable views. Lately, he had announced himself an Askin supporter, if only because people in the society in which he sought his daily bread were, by and large, in the same line. So, with the prospect of affluence set firmly in sight, was growing as