by Peter Temple
‘Yes?’
‘Silent, always watching, and somehow scared. As if you might hurt him. Then he’d do these horrible things. Once when he was here for the weekend from school he made a bow and arrow and shot the cat next door. Through the eye. He said it was an accident. But there was a dog set on fire down the road. We knew it was Jamie. And he drowned Mark’s budgies in the pool. In their cage.’
She looked from Cashin to Dove. ‘He used to read my husband’s medical books. He’d sit on the floor in the study and look at anatomy texts for hours.’
‘Do you know anyone he might be in contact with?’ said Cashin.
She was stroking the cat, her head down. ‘No. He had a friend at school, another problem boy. They expelled him, I gather.’
‘What school did he go to, Mrs Laidlaw?’
‘St Paul’s. The Bourgoynes all went to St Paul’s. Gave it a lot of money.’
‘You said he hated Charles Bourgoyne.’
‘Yes. I didn’t realise how much until I suggested he might like to spend a holiday with Charles. He’d been spending them here. He ran into the front door with his head. Deliberately. And he sat there on the floor screaming no, no, no, over and over. Sixteen stitches in his scalp, that’s what it took.’
‘Thank you for your help, Mrs Laidlaw.’
‘You’re not what I expected.’ She was looking at Dove.
‘We come in all types,’ Cashin said.
She smiled at Dove, an affectionate smile, as if she knew him and thought well of him.
They went down the passage to the front door. Cashin said, ‘Mrs Laidlaw, I have to ask you. Is there even the slightest doubt in your mind over the man you saw in Toorak Road? Is it possible that it wasn’t Jamie?’
‘No doubt at all. I’m perfectly sane, I had my glasses on and it was Jamie.’
‘You told Erica you’d seen him?’
‘Yes. I rang her as soon as I got home.’
‘What did she say?’
‘Nothing really. Yes, dear, that sort of thing.’
A thin but steady rain fell on the men as they walked down the balding gravel path and along the pavement to the vehicle. The gutters were running, carrying leaves and twigs and acorns. In some dark tunnel, they would meet the sordid human litter of the city and go together to the cold slate bay.
It came to Cashin as they reached the car. ‘Be back in a sec,’ he said.
Mrs Laidlaw opened the door as if she’d been waiting behind it. He asked her.
‘Mark Kingston Denby,’ she said. ‘Why?’
‘Just for the record.’
In the car, Cashin said, ‘The school. The expelled friend.’
THE DEPUTY headmaster was in his fifties, grey-suited, tanned and fit-looking like a cross-country skier. ‘School policy is that we do not disclose information about students or staff, past or present,’ he said. He smiled, snowy teeth.
‘Mr Waterson,’ said Cashin, ‘we’ll ruin your evening. We’ll be back inside an hour with a warrant and a truck to take away all your files. And who knows, the media might show up too. Can’t keep anything secret these days. So St Paul’s will be all over the television news tonight. The parents will like that, I’m sure.’
Waterson scratched his cheek, a pink square-cut nail. He wore a copper bracelet. ‘I’ll need to consult,’ he said. ‘Please excuse me a moment.’
Dove went to the office window. ‘Dusk on the playing fields,’ he said. ‘Like England.’
Cashin was looking at the deputy headmaster’s books. They all seemed to be about business management. ‘We fucked this thing up,’ he said. ‘So badly. I’m glad Singo’s not around to see it.’
‘Thank god it’s we,’ said Dove. ‘Imagine what it would be like to have fucked it up all by yourself. Even mostly.’
The door opened. ‘Follow me please, gentlemen,’ said Waterson. ‘I caught our legal adviser on her way home. She works here two days a week.’
They went down the corridor and into a big wood-panelled room. A dark-haired woman in a pinstriped suit was at the head of a table that could seat at least twenty.
‘Louise Carter,’ said Waterson. ‘Detective Cashin and Detective Dove. Please sit down, gentlemen.’
They sat. Carter looked at them in turn.
‘This school jealously guards the privacy of its community,’ she said. She was about fifty, a long face, taut skin around her eyes, a slightly startled look. ‘We don’t accede to requests for information unless requested to do so by the community family or the community family member concerned, if that person is in a position to make such a request. And, even then, we reserve the right to exercise our own judgment on acceding to any requests.’
‘You’ve got that written in your hand,’ said Dove. ‘I saw you look down.’
She was not amused.
‘The community family I’m talking about is in serious shit,’ said Cashin. ‘Just yes or no, we’re in a hurry.’
Carter moved her mouth. ‘You can’t bully St Paul’s, detective. Perhaps you don’t realise the position it occupies in this city.’
‘I don’t give a bugger either. We’ll crawl all over the place. Inside an hour. Believe me.’
She didn’t blink. ‘What is it you want to know about these students?’
‘Why Jamie Bourgoyne was kicked out as a boarder, the name of the friend he had here who was expelled and why.’
A head movement of refusal. ‘Not possible. Please understand that the Bourgoyne family has a long and close association with the school. I’m afraid we can’t…’
‘Don’t loosen your seatbelt,’ said Cashin. ‘We’ll be back soon. You might want to check the lippy, you’re going to be on television.’
Cashin and Dove stood.
‘Wait,’ said Waterson, getting up. ‘I think we can meet this request.’
He left the room and the woman followed him, heels clicking. There was a brief exchange outside and she came back and stood at a window. Then she sat down and there was silence until she coughed and said, ‘Have I seen you two on television?’
Cashin had his eyes on the big painting opposite, vertical bars of grey and brown. It reminded him of a jumper Bern wore, knitted by some old relative, a person with self-respect would compost it.
Once he would have wanted this woman to think well of him.
‘You may have seen me,’ said Dove. ‘I’m the undercover cop. Sometimes I have a beard.’
Waterson came in. He put two yellow folders on the table and sat. ‘I’ll deal with all your inquiries in a narrative,’ he said, businesslike. ‘Feel free to interrupt.’
The woman said, ‘David, can we…’
‘James Bourgoyne and a boy called Justin Fischer were in the same class and in the boarding house together,’ said Waterson.
He looked at the woman, at Cashin. ‘I feel compelled to say that I considered James to be a seriously disturbed young man. And Justin Fischer is the most dangerous boy I’ve encountered in my thirty-six years in education.’
The lawyer leaned forward. ‘David, there’s absolutely no call for this kind of candour. May I…’
‘What happened?’ said Cashin.
‘Among other things, they were suspected of lighting two fires. One burnt down a sports equipment store, the other was lit in the boarding house.’
‘David, please.’
‘Police matters,’ said Cashin.
‘The police were called in, of course,’ said Waterson, ‘but we didn’t pass on our suspicions and they could find nothing. Instead, we asked James’s step-father to remove him from the boarding establishment. This was an attempt to separate the pair.’
The lawyer held up her hands. ‘This may be the moment…’
‘In retrospect,’ said Waterson, ‘we should have told the police everything and expelled both students. In that order.’
The woman said, quickly, ‘David, before you say another word, I must insist that the headmaster be consulted.’
Wate
rson didn’t look at her, kept his eyes on Cashin. ‘Louise,’ he said, ‘the headmaster has the moral sense of Pol Pot. Let’s not now compound our earlier atrocious judgments.’
Cashin saw in the tanned man’s eyes the relief he had seen in people who were confessing to murder. ‘Go on,’ he said. He had the feeling now, the cough tickle in the mind.
‘After Bourgoyne left the boarding establishment,’ said Waterson, ‘there were hedge-burnings locally. Three or four, I can’t remember. Then in Prahran a boy, he was seven or eight, was taken to a quiet spot by two teenage boys and tortured. There’s no other word for it. It was brief and he wasn’t badly hurt but it was torture, sadism. One of our students came to us, he was a boarder, and he said he’d seen Bourgoyne and Fischer near the scene around the time.’
‘You told the police?’
‘To our eternal discredit, we did not.’
‘The student wasn’t told to go to the police?’
‘David,’ said the woman, ‘I must now advise you to…’
‘He was discouraged from doing so,’ said Waterson. ‘On instructions from the headmaster, I discouraged him.’
‘Is that the same as telling him not to?’ said Dove. ‘Discouraged?’
‘Pretty close,’ said Waterson. ‘We then expelled Bourgoyne and Fischer. That day. It was the only right and proper thing we did in all our dealings with the pair.’
‘I’d like copies of the files, please,’ said Cashin.
‘These are copies,’ said Waterson. He pushed them across the table.
‘Thank you,’ said Cashin. He got up and shook hands with Waterson. He didn’t look at the lawyer. ‘There won’t be any reason that I can see for us to mention the school.’
Going down the stone stairs, Cashin opened a file. ‘Get Tracy,’ he said to Dove. In the entrance hall, Dove handed him the mobile.
‘Tracy, Joe. This is top of the list, front burner. Everything on a Justin David Fischer. That’s a S-C-H-E-R. The last address is for an aunt, Mrs K. L. Fischer, 19 Hendon Street, Albert Park. Ask Birk to see if someone can chase that.’
‘We’ve got the Jamie Bourgoyne sweep and the inquest on the Companions fire. Fin’s looking at them.’
‘Ask him to ring me, will you?’
‘And Brisbane checked that Duncan Grant Vallins address. He left there two years ago. They don’t have anything more recent.’
‘Bugger.’
‘The neighbour says a bloke was asking for him last week. Long hair, beard. Another one in the car.’
In the twilight, they crunched softly down the gravel driveway. Boys in green blazers and grey flannels were coming along a path to their right. The pale one in front was eating chips out of box. A boy behind him put a headlock on him, pulled his head back. Another boy walked by and casually took the chip box, kept walking, put one in his mouth.
‘Year ten mugging class,’ said Dove. ‘Been out on a prac.’
‘WHAT’S HE SHOW?’ said Cashin. They were at lights in Toorak Road. Three blonde women were crossing, damp combed hair, no makeup, flushed from an after-work gym class.
‘My oath,’ said Dove. ‘These things are sent to try us.’
‘Never on the electoral roll,’ said Finucane. ‘No Jamie Bourgoyne or Kingsley registered for Medicare, the dole, anything. A driver’s licence issued Darwin 1989, you get that in a show bag. Then he’s on the move. Minor drug stuff in Cairns, arrest for assaulting a kid age twelve in Coffs Harbour. Not proceeded with. Suspended sentences for assault in Sydney in 1986. In a park, victim age sixteen. Possession of heroin in Sydney in 1987. Two years for aggravated burglary in Melbourne in 1990.’
The lights turned green. Without a glance either way, an old woman, small and hunched, head down, wearing a transparent plastic raincoat, pushed a pram-like homemade trolley into the crossing.
‘Like Columbus,’ said Dove. ‘She has no idea.’
The car behind them hooted, two long blasts.
Dove waited until the woman had crossed to safety before he pulled away slowly, held the speed, an act of provocation.
‘Go on,’ said Cashin.
‘That’s it. Jamie came out in ′92 and he’s presumed drowned in Tassie in ′93.’
Cashin said, ‘Fin, Tracy’s on this Fischer bloke. Get whatever and ring me, okay? Also she’s got a Duncan Grant Vallins. He’s a ped, former Anglican sky pilot, address unknown, see if he’s in our system, see if the church knows anything about him. Tell the choirboy who does the church’s spin to co-operate or they’ll turn in the fucking wind. On The 7.30 Report tonight.’
‘Boss.’
‘And one other thing. Try the name Mark Kingston Denby. Ring Dove if you get anything.’
‘Boss.’
Cashin closed his eyes and thought about Helen Castleman naked. So smooth. Nakedness and sex changed everything. No bacon and onion and tomato sandwich would ever taste like that again.
‘Where to?’ said Dove.
‘Queen Street. Know that?’
‘Memorised the map, that’s the first thing I did.’
‘Then there’ll always be a job for you driving cabs. Probably sooner than later.’
In Queen Street, Dove said, ‘Accepting that I might have come on a bit like…’
‘Here,’ said Cashin. ‘Park in there. I want to talk to Erica Bourgoyne.’
‘Bit late in the day, isn’t it?’
‘She’s a lawyer. They don’t go home.’
Cashin had the door open when Dove’s mobile rang. He waited while Dove answered, held up a finger. ‘Putting him on,’ said Dove, offered the phone.
‘Boss, I got through to this church bloke, he gave me Duncan Grant Vallins straight off,’ said Finucane. ‘Living in a place in Essendon, St Aidan’s Home for Boys. It’s shut down but this bloke says church people in need sometimes stay there.’
‘In need of what?’ said Cashin. ‘The address?’
The night was upon them now, rain blurring the lights, dripping from the street trees, the pavement a parade of pale faces above dark garments.
‘Also Mark Kingston Denby, found him. Came out of jail nine weeks ago. Six years for armed robberies. There’s a co-accused here.’
‘Yes?’
‘A Justin Fischer,’ said Finucane. ‘He got the same.’ Cashin thought of calling Villani, changed his mind, told Dove where to go.
THE HEADLIGHTS lit the pillars and the double gates: cast-iron, ornate, fully two metres high, once painted, now an autumn colour and flaking. Beyond them was a driveway, and the lights threw the gates’ shadows onto dark, uncontrolled vegetation.
‘If the prick’s at home, we’re taking him into protective custody,’ said Cashin. His whole torso was aching now and the pain slivers were going down his thighs.
Dove switched off, cut the lights. The street was dark here, the nearest lamp on the other side, fifty metres down. They got out, into the cold evening, the rain holding off for a while.
‘What do we do?’ said Dove.
‘Knock on the front door,’ said Cashin. ‘What else is there to do?’
He tried the gate, put his hand through an opening and found a lever, raised it with difficulty, a screech of metal. The right-hand gate resisted his push, then swung easily. ‘Leave it open,’ he said.
They walked up the drive side by side, trying not to brush the wet bushes. ‘You armed?’ said Dove.
‘Relax,’ said Cashin, ‘it’s one old ex-priest ped, not party night at the Hell’s Angels.’ He knew he should be carrying. He’d got out of the habit, lost the instinct.
The building came into sight, double-storeyed, brick, arched windows, steps up to a long porch and a front door with leadlight windows on either side. A slit of light showed in a window to the left, a curtain not fully drawn.
‘Someone home,’ said Cashin. ‘Someone in need.’
They climbed the stairs, he pulled back a solid ring of brass, pounded a few times, waited, hammered again.
The leadlight on the
left glowed dimly—red and white and green and violet, a biblical scene, a group of men, one haloed.
‘Who’s there?’ A firm male voice.
‘Police,’ said Cashin.
‘Put your identification through the letter slot.’
Cashin gestured to Dove, who took out his ID card, pushed it through the slot. It was taken. They heard two bolts slide. The door opened.
‘What is it?’ A tall unshaven man in black, many-chinned, round glasses, thin grey hair combed back, oily, curling at the tips.
‘Duncan Grant Vallins?’
‘Yes.’
‘Detective Senior Sergeant Cashin, homicide. Detective Dove.’
‘What do you want?’
‘Can we come in?’
Vallins hesitated, stood back. They went into a marble-floored entrance hall with a staircase rising in the centre, branching left and right to a gallery. Six metres up hung a many-tiered crystal chandelier.
‘This way,’ said Vallins.
They followed his pear shape into a room to the left. It was a big sitting room, one dim unshaded bulb above, one standing lamp near a fireplace. The furniture was old, shabby, unmatched chairs, a sagging chintz sofa. The smell was of damp and mouse droppings and ancient cigarette smoke trapped in curtains and carpet and coverings.
Vallins sat in the chair next to the lamp, crossed his legs, adjusted them. His thighs were fat. Next to a white cup, a filter cigarette was burning in a brass ashtray and he picked it up and drew deeply, long thin fingers stained the colour of cinnamon sticks. ‘What do you want?’ he said.
‘Do you know an Arthur Pollard?’ said Cashin, looking at the room, at the high ceiling, at the group of bottles on a side table, whisky bottles, seven or eight, empty except for two.
‘Vaguely. Years ago.’
‘Robin Gray Bonney. Know him?’
Vallins sucked on the cigarette, spat smoke, waved a hand. ‘Also a long time ago. Donkeys’ years. Why?’
‘Charles Bourgoyne,’ said Cashin. ‘You probably know Charles. Vaguely. From a long time ago. And Mr Crake of course.’
Vallins didn’t say anything, found a cigarette in a packet, lit it from his stub, had trouble docking, a shake in both hands. He ground the donor in the ashtray. ‘What is this nonsense?’ he said, high, proper voice. ‘Why have you come here to bother me?’
