I poured the drink and took it upstairs to where I keep the computer in the spare bedroom. I made a mental note to check on Bryce O’Connor because I felt sure I’d have further dealings with him, and on Lorraine Master, naturally. Then I began my trawl for the dope on Stewart Master. In the old days this would have meant visits to newspapers or libraries and fiddling about with microfilms or, still worse, microfiche. Now it’s a comfort-of-your-own-home job with a drink to hand. In one way I like it, in another I don’t. There was something about getting out, rubbing up against people to get what you wanted, that felt good, gave you a feel for things.

The subscription to the Sydney Morning Herald database is another overhead, but a valuable one. I turned up the paper’s coverage of the Master trial and read through the reports carefully. I also studied the photographs and saw that the lensmen hadn’t missed an opportunity to get pictures of Lorraine. She turned up every day in a variety of outfits. Nothing flashy, all designed to show, firstly, how mature and respectable she was and, secondly, how attractive. Would a man smuggle drugs, risk gaol, risk losing me? her appearance seemed to say.

It didn’t do any good. Master, born in Melbourne, arriving in Sydney in his twenties, was a career criminal, the amount of heroin was large and he’d been ‘uncooperative’ with the police. O’Connor, giving him his due, had stressed Master’s non-involvement with drugs and his relatively clean record in recent times. A family man, happily married, a sportsman.

The clincher was Master’s fingerprints on one of the plastic bags containing the dope. O’Connor argued that these could have post-dated the discovery of the bags but two customs officials swore that Master hadn’t touched the bags. O’Connor tried the Mandy Rice-Davies argument-’Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they?’-but it didn’t work. An election wasn’t far off and law and order toughness was the watchword. Justice Mary Pappas wasn’t looking to get her sentences reviewed for softness and she hit Stewie with twelve big ones.