D-E-D Dead!

I should have known it was going to be a lousy week when I dropped my gun in the tram on the way to the office. I guess I was a bit tired and edgy and concerned about being away from the action for so long. You miss being in the thick of things for the first few weeks and then you start wondering if you really miss it at all. Maybe I was getting too old for this spying lurk. What I really truly wanted was to be parked in a cane chair on a mountaintop somewhere in Bali, sipping a G and T and luxuriating in the serenity of a tropical paradise, instead of sitting like a gig on a Melbourne tram with my gun on the floor.

The unfortunate firearms incident occurred as the No. 16 W Class was rattling down a sun-dappled St Kilda Road scattering crisp early-autumn leaves and blue-blazered, backpack-toting public schoolboys from its path. The geriatric Ws, vintage trams with a pedigree going back to the thirties, had been withdrawn from service a few years ago when they began exhibiting a distinct lack of interest in responding to the brakes. After a lot of grousing from the public, and a multi-million-dollar refit, fifty or so of these boxy veterans were now back on the rails for the benefit of tourists and nostalgia freaks. Only in Melbourne would commuters with a fleet of sleek European-style trams at their disposal demand the return of these damp, draughty, uncomfortable and noisy relics.

Foibles like these, plus the wide streets and excellent restaurants, help to make Melbourne one of Australia's great cities. For my money though, you only want to live in Melbourne a couple of months of the year, and it was getting towards the end of those months. This was definitely an autumn-and-spring kind of town. The lung-blistering dry heat of summer was long gone and the abject misery of another wet, cold, depressing winter was looming. There was a very good reason why out-of-towners like me called the joint 'Bleak City'. The grey chill of the long winter, compounded by the locals' fanatical devotion to Australian Rules Football, made me glad my three-month posting was almost over and I would soon be escaping back north to a more temperate and less sports-mad Sydney. In Sydney no-one really cared if your parents hadn't sworn a blood oath of lifelong dedication to one particular football team on your behalf within seconds of your birth.

It was right on 9 a.m. when we crossed the Princes Bridge and rattled past the Arts Centre and the National Gallery. You don't often see a W Class on the City to St Kilda route and I was enjoying the ride, right up to the second when we reached the Domain interchange. Only moments before, the ticket inspector – or to give him his official title, Revenue Protection Officer – had decided to start earning his keep. As I leaned forward to get the ticket from my wallet in my back trouser pocket the tram hit the interchange points where the tracks split off towards the Botanical Gardens. There was a metallic squeal from the wheels, then a jolt and the little Sauer 9mm semiautomatic made a slow-motion swan dive out of my shoulder holster. The weapon thudded onto the ribbed wooden floor, smack bang at the feet of the scruffy young Yarra Trams employee. He stared gloomily down at the battered blue steel pistol resting between the scuffed toes of his Doc Martens.

'Youse aren't supposed to have a gun on a tram,' he said. And then, after a pause, 'That a valid ticket?'

Strictly speaking you're not supposed to carry a pistol anywhere in the country. The general exceptions are on-duty police officers, licensed security guards, media magnates and their bodyguards, and all those Wyatt Earps who belong to pistol clubs. And technically they're only supposed to carry firearms on the shortest possible route between the club's shooting range and their homes. It's a funny thing how often that route seems to take in pubs, 7-Eleven parking lots, seedy dance clubs and all the other places dickheads and smart alecs like to congregate.

'It's just a replica,' I said loudly for the benefit of several alert and very alarmed-looking fellow passengers. 'Birthday present for my nephew.'

Flashing the phoney police ID card that went with the gun seemed to satisfy the ticket inspector. The name on the card, Alby Murdoch, was mine, as was the face in the photo, but I was carrying a lot less bottle age when the picture was taken. A cheap trick like that wouldn't have worked in the old days, before privatisation and automatic ticket machines, when female conductors ran Melbourne's trams like private fiefdoms. An old-style connie with a hand-knitted cardigan under her cigarette-ash-dusted Melbourne Metropolitan Tramways Board blue woollen blazer would have given me a real earbashing. Probably would have confiscated the pistol too. I'm pretty sure that there was a Directorate regulation somewhere that said you could never, ever justify losing your weapon except if a MMTB connie took it off you and wouldn't give it back. Never push your luck with a Melbourne connie was the rule. Back then even real cops were wary of them.

Be that as it may, by this time I was much more interested in the raven-haired woman sitting opposite me who had very kindly bent down to retrieve my gun. She was thirtyish, I guessed, and fairly attractive, in a jaw-droppingly gorgeous kind of way – tall, great legs in sleek stockings, beautifully tailored suit, thin and expensive-looking briefcase and a disarming smile. And olive skin, great cheekbones and the most extraordinary slate-grey eyes. Being a spy made me notice the details; being a photographer made me appreciate them. Plus, of course, I'm a bloke.

'Aren't you a little too old to be playing with toys?' she asked. She had quite a sparkle in those grey eyes. The accent was definitely American, her nails were perfectly manicured and I almost missed the movement as her thumb casually checked the safety catch before she handed me the pistol, butt first, muzzle down. Which, of course, was exactly the right way to do it, according to my small-arms instructor in basic weapons training in spy school, way back when. The woman pulled the cord and got off at the next stop, one before mine.

Now this was certainly a turn-up for the books; two people perched opposite each other on the slippery wooden seats of the No. 16 City to St Kilda W Class who both knew how to handle a shooter. What the hell was genteel old Melbourne coming to?