by Peter Temple
‘Joe Cashin,’ he said when he reached them. He didn’t offer to shake hands.
‘Chris Pascoe,’ said the man closest, the bigger of the two. He had a broken nose. ‘This’s Susie. Don’t remember you from the school.’
‘Yeah, well, if you remember Bern Doogue, I was there.’
‘Tough little shit that Bern. All the Doogues. Seen him around, not so little now, he don’t know me. Gone white, I reckon.’
The other man stared into the distance, chin up, like a figurehead. He had dreadlocks pushed back, a trimmed beard and a gold ring in the visible earlobe.
‘The lawyer says there’s something I should know,’ said Cashin.
‘Tell him, Suse,’ said Pascoe to the girl.
Susie blinked rapidly, didn’t look at Cashin. ‘Corey had a watch,’ she said. ‘Before he went to Sydney.’
‘What kind of watch?’
‘Leather strap, it had all these little clock things.’ She made tiny circles on her wrist. ‘Expensive.’
‘Did he say where he’d got it?’
‘Didn’t know I’d seen it. I was just lookin for my CDs, he pinched my CDs all the time.’
‘Why didn’t you ask him?
She looked at Cashin, eyebrows up, big brown eyes. ‘So he’d know I looked in his room? Shit, not that fuckin brave.’
‘Watch your language,’ said her father.
‘If I showed you a picture of the watch, would you recognise it?’ said Cashin.
Susie shrugged inside the anorak, it barely moved. ‘Dunno.’
‘You had a good look at it?’
‘Yeah.’
Cashin thought about the band of pale skin on Bourgoyne’s wrist. ‘How come you’re not sure you’d recognise it?’
‘Dunno. I might.’
‘The name of the watch?’ he said. ‘Notice that?’
‘Yeah.’
Cashin looked at the men. It gained him nothing. The dreadlocked one was rolling a cigarette.
‘You remember the name?’
‘Yeah. Bretling. Something like that.’
‘Can you spell that?’
‘What’s this spell shit?’ said Chris Pascoe. ‘She seen the watch.’
‘Can you spell it?’
She hesitated. ‘Dunno. Like B-R-E-T-L-I-N-G.’
If they’d schooled her, she would have got it right. Unless they’d schooled her not to.
‘When was this?’ said Cashin.
‘Long time ago. A year, I spose.’
‘Tell me something,’ said Cashin. ‘Why’d you only talk about the watch now?’
‘Told me mum the day after.’
‘After what?’
‘After you shot Corey and Luke.’
He absorbed that. ‘What did she say?’
The girl looked, not at her father but at the dreadlocked man. He opened his mouth and the wind took smoke from it. Cashin couldn’t read his eyes.
‘She said don’t talk about it.’
‘Why?’
‘Dunno. That’s what she said.’
‘Got to go,’ said Chris Pascoe. ‘So she’s told you, right? Can’t say you don’t know now, right?’
‘No,’ said Cashin. ‘Can’t say that. Didn’t catch your friend’s name.’
‘Stevo,’ said Pascoe. ‘He’s Stevo. That right, Stevo?’
Stevo sucked on his cigarette, his cheeks hollowed. He flicked the stub, the wind floated it across the jetty. A gull swooped and took it. Stevo’s face came alive. ‘See that? Fuckin bird smokes.’
‘Thanks for your time,’ said Cashin. ‘Got a number I can ring you on?’
The men looked at each other. Stevo shrugged.
‘Give you my mobile,’ said Pascoe.
He found the mobile in his jacket and read out the number written on the cover.
Cashin wrote it in his book. ‘You’ll hear from me or the lawyer,’ he said. ‘Thank you, Susie.’
‘He wasn’t a bad kid, Corey,’ said Pascoe. ‘Could’ve played AFL footy. Just full of shit, thought he saw a fuckin career in dope. You a mate of Hopgood and that lot?’
‘No.’
‘But you’ll stick with the bastards, won’t you? All in together.’
‘I do my job. I don’t stick with anyone.’
Walking down the uneven planks, looking at the fishermen, at the shifting sea, Cashin felt the eyes on him. At the wool store, he turned his head.
The men hadn’t moved. They were watching him, backs against the rail. Susie was looking down at the sodden planks.
‘IT’S DIFFICULT,’ said Dove, his voice even hoarser on the telephone. ‘I’m not a free agent here.’
‘This thing’s a worry to me,’ said Cashin.
‘Yeah, well, you have worries and then you have other worries.’
‘Like what?’
‘I told you about the freezer. The election’s coming on. You go on worrying and then you’re in charge at Bringalbert North. And your mate Villani can’t save you.’
‘Where’s Bringalbert?’
‘Exactly. I have no fucking idea.’
‘The difference is that then we thought the boys had done it and you thought someone’d gone soft-cock on Donny, he was going to walk.’
‘Yeah, well. Then. Talked to Villani?’
‘He told me to get on with my holiday,’ said Cashin.
‘That’ll be coming from on high. The local pols don’t want to turn the sexy white hotel staff of Cromarty against them and the federal government doesn’t want to give Bobby Walshe any more oxygen than he’s getting now.’
It was late morning, a fire going. Cashin was on the floor in the Z-formation, trying to hollow his back, lower legs on an unstable kitchen chair. Silent rain on the roof, drops ghosting down the big window. No working on Tommy Cashin’s ruin today.
‘If this thing is left,’ he said, ‘it dies. The inquest will say very unfortunate set of events, no one to blame, it’ll pass into history, never be picked up again. Everyone’s dead. And then the kids and the families and the whole Daunt have it stuck on them. They murdered Charles Bourgoyne, a local saint. A stain forever.’
‘Tragic,’ said Dove. ‘Stains are tragic. I used to like those stain commercials on TV. Joe, do you get television where you are?’
‘And see what?’
‘Bobby Walshe and the dead black boys.’
‘I may be stuck out here in the arse,’ said Cashin, ‘but the brain’s still functioning. If you don’t want to do this, just say it.’
‘So touchy. What do you want?’
‘Bourgoyne’s watch. Did anyone bother to find out where he bought it? It’s fancy, I think they have numbers, like car engines.’
‘I’ll see. That doesn’t run to risking the Bumbadgery transfer.’
‘I thought it was Bringalbert North?’
‘I’m told they’re the twin stars in the one-cop constellation. Still doing that lying on the floor business?’
‘No.’
‘Pity. An interesting practice, a conversation starter. I’ll call you.’
Cashin disconnected, stared at the ceiling. He saw Dove’s serious face, the doubting eyes behind the little round glasses. After a while, he went into a near-sleep, hearing the rain coursing in the gutters and downpipes. It sounded like the creek in flood. He thought of going down to it after rain when he was a boy, the grass wetting him almost to the armpits, hearing the rushing sound, seeing the water brushing aside the overhanging branches, swamping mossy islands he’d fished from, foaming around and over the big rocks. In places there were whitewater races, small waterfalls. Once he saw a huge piece of the opposite bank break off. It fell slowly into the stream, exposing startled earthworms.
The money Cecily Addison paid out on behalf of Bourgoyne. Cecily’s payment records, he had them.
Cashin lifted his legs off the chair, rolled onto his right side, got up with difficulty and went to the table. The thick yellow folder was under layers of old newspapers.
&
nbsp; He made a mug of tea, brought it to the table. The first payment sheet was dated January 1993. He flipped through them. Most months were a page, single-spaced.
Start at the beginning and work back? He looked at the top page. Names—shops, tradesmen, rates, power, water, telephones, insurance premiums. Others gave only dates, cheque numbers and amounts. He’d given up the first time he looked at the statements and then things happened and he never went back.
Cashin read, circled, tried to group the items. After an hour, he rang. Cecily Addison was not available, said Mrs McKendrick.
Taking her nap, thought Cashin. ‘This is the police,’ he said. ‘We’re terribly polite but we’ll come around and wake Mrs Addison if that’s necessary.’
‘Please hold on,’ she said. ‘I’ll see if she’ll speak to you.’
It was several minutes before Cecily Addison came on. ‘Yeees?’
‘Joe Cashin, Mrs Addison.’
‘Joe.’ Groggy voice. ‘Saw you on television, being rude. Won’t get promoted that way, my boy.’
‘Mrs Addison, the payments you made for Bourgoyne. Some don’t have names. You can’t tell who’s being paid.’
Cecily began clearing her throat. Cashin held the telephone away from his ear. After a while, Cecily said, ‘That’s the regulars, the wages, that sort of thing.’
‘There’s two grand every month to someone, going back to the beginning of these payments. What’s that?’
‘No idea. Charles provided an account number, the money was transferred.’
‘I need the numbers and the banks.’
‘Confidential, I’m afraid.’
Cashin sighed as loudly as he could. ‘Been through that with you, Mrs Addison. This is about a murder. I’ll come around with the warrant, we’ll take away all your files.’
A counter-sigh. ‘Not at my fingertips this information. Mrs McKendrick will ring.’
‘Inside ten minutes, please, Mrs Addison.’
‘Oh, right. Galvanised now, are we? It took the third dead boy and Bobby Walshe.’
‘I look forward to hearing from Mrs McKendrick. Very soon. Who was Mr McKendrick?’
‘She lost him in Malaya in the fifties. Tailgunner in a Lincoln.’
‘A man going forward while looking back,’ said Cashin. ‘I know that feeling.’
‘In this case, falling forward. Off a hotel balcony. Pissed as a parrot, excuse the expression.’
‘I’m shocked.’
Inside ten minutes, Mrs McKendrick provided the information, speaking as if to a blackmailer. Then Cashin had to ask Dove to make the inquiries. He rang when Cashin was bringing in firewood.
‘I had to suggest, tell half-lies,’ Dove said. ‘I hardly know you. From now on, I want you to tell your own half-lies.’
‘Truth Lite, everyone does it. The name?’ The day was almost done, embers behind the western hills.
‘A. Pollard. 128A Collet Street, North Melbourne. All withdrawals through local ATMs.’
‘Who’s A. Pollard?’
‘An Arthur Pollard.’
The dogs were nudging him. It was time. ‘We have a mystery bloke on the payroll for umpteen years,’ he said. ‘Needs a bit of work, don’t you think?’
Cashin heard a sound. Dove was tapping on his desk.
‘Yes, well,’ Dove said, ‘there’s no shortage of things need work around here. And this little inquiry took fucking hours.’
‘The extra mile. Force’ll be proud of you.’
Three slow knuckle taps. ‘I have to say this. I’m unsuited to homicide. It was a mistake. The death of a rich old cunt doesn’t move me. I don’t care if the guilty walk free. I don’t even care if possibly innocent people now dead get the blame.’
Cashin rubbed dog heads in turn, the ridges of bone. ‘Bourgoyne’s watch?’ he said. ‘What about that?’
‘May I say fuck off, pretty please?’
Time. Cashin put on his father’s Drizabone, the short coat, dark brown, wrinkled like the skin of a peatbog man. One day about a year after he came to stay with the Doogues, Bern’s father had offered it to him when they were going out with the ferrets.
‘Your dad’s. Hung onto it for you. Bit big. Mick wasn’t small.’
Man and dogs in the rain, going downhill, escaping the worst of the wind. The long dry was over, the creek was filling. The dogs looked at it with amazement, affronted. They tested it with sensitive toes.
Cashin put his hands in the big pleated pockets. Was he wearing this that day? Was it night? Did he take it off and put it on a stone step before he jumped into the Kettle?
Was it the step I sat on with Helen?
He felt cold, whistled for the dogs. They looked around in unison.
RAIN SUITED Cromarty. In the old town, it turned the cobbled gutters to silver streams, darkened the bricks and stones and tiles, gave the leaves of the evergreen oaks a deep lustre.
Cashin parked outside the co-op and sat, wiped the side window to look at the street: a fat damp man pushing a supermarket trolley four blocks from the shop, two skateboarding kids wagging school, two women in shapeless cotton garments arguing as they walked, heads jerking. He didn’t understand Cromarty, Cashin thought, he didn’t know who had the Grip.
Singo had introduced him to the Grip.
It’s the power to hurt, son. And the power to stop anyone hurting you. That’s the Grip. There’s blokes with millions got it and there’s blokes with bugger all. There’s blokes with three degrees and blokes can’t read the Macca’s menu.
The Bourgoynes would have had the Grip when the engine factory employed half the town. Did Charles keep the Grip after it was sold? Did he have any need for it?
Cashin got out. The rain soaked his hair, overran his eyebrows. He bought two big bags of dry dog food, drove to the supermarket and filled two trolleys, bulk buying. Never again could he enter Derry Callahan’s shop. No more was there a milk, bread or dog food lifeline. Then he bought some whiting fillets at the fish shop and drove to Kenmare.
The street was empty, a windless moment, straight lines of rain. He went into the butcher. A new person stood behind the counter, a pudgy young man, spotted face, dark hair. They said good day.
‘Couple of metres of dog sausage to begin,’ Cashin said. ‘Where’s Kurt?’
‘Cromarty. Dentist.’
‘Helping out?’
‘Permanent. Bit short on the dog, mate.’
‘What you’ve got then.’
The youth weighed the sausage, wrapped it in paper, put it in a plastic bag.
‘Plus three kilos of rump,’ said Cashin. ‘The stuff he hangs.’
He fetched the meat, cut, weighed. ‘Take three-thirty?’
‘That’s fine. Mincer clean?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Run three kilos of topside, will you? Not too much fat.’
‘Need some warning, mate. Come back tomorrow?’
‘Too busy, are you?’
‘Now, yeah.’
‘Tell Kurt Joe Cashin’s looking for another butcher, will you?’
The youth thought for a moment. ‘Spose I can do the mince,’ he said.
Cashin went out, sat in the vehicle, looked at the rain, placed the youth. He was wrapping the mince when Cashin opened the door.
‘Local, aren’t you?’ said Cashin. ‘What’s the name?’
‘Lee Piggot.’ Lee was a bad wrapper, his fingers were too big. ‘You the Doogues’ cousin?’
‘That’s right. Know the Doogues?’
‘Some. When I was at school,’
‘Lee Piggot. Hear your name around the Cromarty drug squad?’
Flush, pink turning red. ‘No.’
‘Must be a name like yours. Butcher’s a good job, a career. Honest work. People like their butcher. They even trust their butcher.’
Your police force, Cashin thought. Working with the community to create a better society. Using methods of fear and intimidation.
Last stop, Port Monro. The station was
unattended. He let himself in and checked his desk: an envelope of pages faxed by Dove.
Heading home, a man on holiday, five weeks to go. The rain had stopped, the clouds dispersed, the world was clean and light. How much clearing and building could you do in five weeks?
Rebb was at work in the garden. He had found a low drystone wall.
‘Jesus,’ said Cashin. ‘The elves been working here? In the rain?’
‘Work’s work. Can’t let rain stop you.’
‘Stops me.’
‘You’re a cop. You don’t know about work. Pulling down the zip, that’s work for cops.’
‘You’d get on really well with Bern. Soulmates.’
They put in two hours, exposed twenty metres of stacked fieldstone and the remains of a wrought-iron gate.
‘Made something to eat,’ said Rebb. They walked back to the house and he produced four sandwiches neatly tied with cotton and toasted them under the grill.
‘Not bad,’ said Cashin. ‘Old bushie recipe?’
‘Tomato and onion’s not a recipe.’
They went back and worked for another hour and then Rebb went to milking. ‘Old bloke’s taking me for a feed,’ he said. ‘At the Kenmare pub.’
Cashin carried on for half an hour, then he walked around and looked at the work they’d done in the garden and on the house. He realised that it gave him pleasure to see the progress, that he was proud of his part. It also came to him that he’d laboured for almost four hours without much pain.
Inside, straightening from giving the dogs their bowls, the current went through him. He moved slowly to a kitchen chair, sat bolt upright, eyes closed. It was a long time before he felt safe to rise. Then, tentative movements, he made a fire, opened a beer, sat at the table with the papers from Dove.
There were three medical reports on Bourgoyne. One was on his condition on arrival at the hospital. The second was from a forensic pathologist, who, at the request of the police, examined him as far as was possible in intensive care the next day. The third was the autopsy after his death. Bourgoyne’s death was caused by his head striking the stone hearth.
The experts found that the marks on his knees and palms and feet were consistent with walking on hands and knees on rough carpeting. His facial bruises indicated being slapped repeatedly by someone standing above him, slapping with both sides of a hand about nine centimetres wide. The strokes across his back had almost certainly been administered with a bamboo stick of the kind sold by nurseries to support plants.
