4. Nuts and bolts

Cleveland Street, Surry Hills, opposite the SH Shopping Centre

Scrubbed beyond moisture, the grey tongue-and-groove boards panelled the dingy room, the solitary light falling through the grimy louvre window high to the rear. Burnished rosewood cabinets lined each wall, while across the rear stretched banks of gun-metal-grey shelving overflowing with ladders and trestles, hinges, and angle irons.

Broaching forty, Dickie Harris was one of the unfortunates on whom fate bestowed a baby face. His soft pink flesh reinforced the apparent immaturity, as did the rose-bud flush that caroused his face when social inadequacy called. However, Dickie was master of all he surveyed on the shop floor.

Set into the rear of each cabinet were banks of drawers. Dickie eased each drawer over its felt runner and checked that screws lay beside screws, slotted with slotted and Phillips Head with Phillips Head, each to his own kind, before moving to the next drawer. In Dickie’s domain, everything had a place.