by Peter Temple
‘All three.’
‘That’s right.’
‘No mention of anything else?’
‘Nothing, boss.’
Cashin regretted eating breakfast, a sick feeling rising in him. ‘Remember the doctor’s name?’
‘I’ve got it here. Castleman, Dr Rodney Castleman. Signed Bourgoyne’s wife’s death certificate too. A busy GP.’
Helen’s father. Cecily Addison said:
Lots of people took an interest. Public-spirited place then, Cromarty. People did good works, didn’t do it to get their names in the paper either. Virtue is its own reward.
‘Here’s something weird,’ said Villani. ‘Dave Vincent remembers the car that night.’
‘Got a thing about cars, Dave,’ said Finucane. ‘He says it was a Merc station wagon. He knows that because it was the first wagon Mercedes made. 1979.’
‘Was that useful?’ said Cashin.
‘I tracked it.’
‘Let me guess. Bourgoyne.’
‘Company car. Charles Bourgoyne and someone called J. A. Cameron were directors.’
‘Jock Cameron. Local solicitor. Who was the Companion there that night?’
‘Vallins,’ said Villani.
‘Got a smoke?’ said Cashin.
Villani took out a packet and pushed in the lighter. They waited in silence, lit up.
The nicotine hit Cashin like a headbutt, he couldn’t speak for a while, then he said, ‘Jesus, how did they get away with it? Ran the camp as a brothel, murdered at least three boys, not a murmur. What kind of fucking investigation was there?’
Villani ran down the front windows, a smell of exhaust fumes, of newly spread bitumen. ‘Something else to tell you. Singo died two days ago. Another stroke. Big time.’
‘Shit,’ said Cashin. ‘Well. Shit.’ He felt tears coming, turned his head away from Villani, blinked rapidly.
‘Singo did the Companions fire,’ said Villani. ‘He was number two then.’
Cashin saw Singo in his exhausted riven raincoat, saw the burnt ruins in that place, the goalposts in the grass, the little belt. Singo had never mentioned Cromarty. Late at night, drink taken, he talked about jobs in Stawell and Mildura and Geelong and Sale and Shepparton, about the travelling prostitute murders in Bendigo, the man who killed his uncle and aunt on the tobacco farm near Bright, planned to turn them into silage and feed them to the pigs.
Singo never spoke of Cromarty.
‘I got a bad feeling,’ said Villani. He shifted, uncomfortable. ‘We pulled his bank records. I never thought that day would come, not if I lived to…anyway, nothing. Just his pay and dividends from some Foster’s shares.’
‘He wouldn’t drink their beer,’ said Cashin. ‘He hated their beer.’
Villani looked at him in a hopeless way, opened his window and flicked his butt, almost hit a seagull, caused it to hop. Cashin thought about the meeting on the pier, the gull catching the stub in mid-air.
‘Three years ago,’ said Villani, ‘Singo inherited a million bucks from his brother. Derek. Derek left the whole family rich. About fourteen million in the estate.’
‘Yes?’ said Cashin.
‘Singo’s like a fuckin parrot on my shoulder, I’m where I am because of him. Think the job’s done, son? Well, go the extra yard. Ninety-nine times, it’s a waste. But then there’s the one. So I went the yard, we went the yard.’
Fat raindrops on the windscreen. Cashin thought that he wanted to be home now, in the buggered old house, in the buggered old chair, he wanted the dogs burrowing their noses into the cushions beneath his thighs, the fire going, the music. He wanted Björling. It would be Björling first. Björling and then Callas.
‘Someone paid two hundred thousand dollars into brother Derek’s three bank accounts in 1983,’ said Villani. ‘Three days after the Cromarty fire. Then, after the inquest, Derek got another two hundred grand. He bought land on the Gold Coast. No cunt, Derek.’
Cashin looked at Villani. Villani held his gaze, deep lines between his eyebrows, nodded, small nods, drew on his cigarette, tried to blow smoke out of the window. It came back.
‘Singo took money from Bourgoyne?’
‘Paid from a company bank account. You have to go back through three other companies to find it’s a Bourgoyne outfit.’
Cashin thought that there was no firm ground in life. Just crusts of different thicknesses over the ooze. They sat in silence, watching three nurses going off duty, level as cricket stumps, the one in the middle moving her hands as if conducting an orchestra.
‘It’s like two deaths to me,’ said Villani. ‘I woke today, something’s missing, something’s gone.’
‘Anything else?’ said Cashin. ‘Any other bits and pieces I should be aware of? No? I’ll be on my way home then, thank you for coming.’
‘Fin’s driving,’ said Villani. ‘Birkerts’s down there, he’s finished, he’ll bring him back. Don’t like that, you can take a cab, take a fucking walk.’
Cashin wanted to argue but he had no strength.
‘There is something else,’ said Villani. ‘Singo’s lawyer rang. We’re in the will, you and me and Birk.’
‘Last untainted place in the force, homicide,’ said Cashin. ‘The Salvos can have my share.’
When they were on the road, Cashin said, ‘Fin, I need to go to Queen Street. Won’t take long.’
ERICA BOURGOYNE, handsome and severe in black, was standing behind a glass-topped desk. ‘I really don’t have time today,’ she said. ‘So can we keep this as brief as possible?’
‘We can,’ said Cashin.
He took his time, looked around the big wood-panelled office, at the glass-fronted bookshelves, the leather client chairs, the fresh violets in a cut-glass vase on the windowsill, the bare plane branches outside.
‘Very nice office,’ he said.
‘Please get on with it.’ Head on one side, the voice and face of a schoolteacher with a dim pupil.
‘I thought I might put a few things to you. Propositions.’
She looked at her watch. ‘I can give you five minutes. To the second.’
‘Your brother was sexually abused by your step-father and you know that.’
Erica sat down, blinking as if something had lodged in her eyes.
‘Jamie and Justin Fischer tortured and killed Arthur Pollard and I think you know that. Jamie and Justin murdered a man called Robin Gray Bonney in Sydney and you may or may not know that.’
Erica held up her hands. ‘Detective, this is absolutely…’
‘Why didn’t you tell me, tell anyone, that Mrs Laidlaw had seen Jamie?’
A vague gesture. ‘Moira’s getting on, she can’t be relied upon…’
‘Mrs Laidlaw appeared to me to be in complete command of her faculties. She had no doubt that she saw Jamie. And you believed her, didn’t you? That’s when you hired the security. It was before Charles was bashed.’
‘Detective Cashin, you’ve overstepped the mark. I can see no point in going on with this.’
‘We can do it in a formal interview,’ said Cashin. ‘Put the day on hold and come down to St Kilda Road. It’s probably better that way. You’re the one who’s overstepped a mark. You’re looking at conspiracy.’
Silence. She held his gaze but he saw the sign.
‘You spoke to Jamie, didn’t you?’ said Cashin.
‘No.’
Erica closed her eyes. He could see the tracery of veins. Cashin said what had been on his mind for a long time. ‘Just the two of you after your mother’s accident. All alone at night in that big house with Charles. What happened at night, Erica?’
‘Joe, please, no.’ Her chin was on her chest, a piece of hair fell across her brow. ‘Please, Joe.’
‘What happened to you in that house, Erica?’
Silence.
‘Did you become Charles’s little wife? Was it before or after your mother’s death? You followed him around. You worshipped him. Did you know those men were fucking Jamie? Did
you know Charles was?’
She had begun to shake. ‘No, no, no…’ It was not a denial. It was a plea for him to stop.
‘Still believe your mother’s death was an accident, do you, Erica? The same night as the fire at the Companions camp, remember that? Three boys died that night. Charles killed one of them with his own hands at The Heights. Did your mother see something? Hear something?’
‘Joe, no, please, I can’t…’
Cashin looked at her bowed head, saw the pale skin of her scalp, her hands clenched at her throat.
Erica did not raise her head, she was saying something inaudible, saying it to herself, again and again and again, saying a mantra.
Cashin knew about mantras. He had said a million mantras, against pain, against thought, against memory, against the night that would not surrender its dark.
She straightened in her chair, she was trying to regain her composure.
Cashin waited.
‘What does it matter now, Joe?’ she said, voice drained of life, an old voice. ‘Why do you want to drag this from me? Do you get pleasure from this?’
‘The bodyguard,’ said Cashin. ‘What was that about?’
‘A client threatened me.’
‘I don’t believe you. I think you always knew Jamie was alive. You were protective of him but you were also scared of him. That’s right, isn’t it?’
No reply.
‘You watched them torture Pollard, didn’t you? There was one seat down in the hall. Just one. You sat there, Erica.’
She was crying silently, tears gouging her makeup.
‘Did Charles hand you on to Pollard, Erica? Pollard liked young girls too. We found the pictures in his computer. You wanted Jamie to kill Charles and Pollard, didn’t you? You couldn’t be there for Charles but you weren’t going to miss Pollard. That’s right, isn’t it.’
Erica began to sob, louder and louder, her head down, her upper body shaking.
‘Did you stay to the end, Erica? Did you clap when they raised him? Did it cleanse you?’
A woman crying, her whole body crying, her whole being crying.
Cashin stood.
‘You’re a sick person, Ms Bourgoyne,’ he said. ‘Sickness has bred sickness. Thanks for your time.’
Solid rain was falling on Queen Street. Fin was double-parked, obstructing the traffic, reading the paper.
‘How was that, boss?’ he said.
‘Pretty ordinary,’ said Cashin. ‘Take me home, son.’
THE DOGS were unrecognisable.
‘What have you done to them?’ said Cashin. ‘Look at those ears.’
‘They’ve been properly clipped and groomed for the first time in their lives,’ said his mother. ‘They loved it.’
‘They’re in shock. They need counselling.’
‘I think they should stay here. They’re happy here. I don’t think they want to go back to that ruin.’
Cashin walked to the vehicle and opened a back door. The dogs looked, didn’t move.
‘See, Joseph,’ said his mother. ‘See.’
Cashin whistled, one clear whistle, and jerked his thumb at the door. The dogs raced for the vehicle, managed to get through the doorway abreast, sat bolt upright, looking straight ahead.
Cashin closed the door. ‘I’ll bring them to visit,’ he said.
‘Often,’ said his mother. ‘Bonzo loves them. They’re his best dog friends.’
Cashin thought he saw a tear. ‘I’ll drop them off to see Bonzo when I go to town,’ he said. ‘Provided there’s no dioxin spraying going on.’ He went over and kissed her.
‘You should think about counselling, Joseph,’ she said, holding his head. ‘Your life is the most awful litany of horrors.’
‘Just a run of bad luck.’ He got in.
She came to the window. ‘They like chicken, have you got chicken?’
‘They like fillet steak too. They get dead animals I find by the roadside. Bye, Syb.’
Driving home with the last pink in the west, the night taking the land ditch by ditch, hollow by hollow. At the crossroads, he switched on the lights and, five minutes later, they panned across the dark house and a man leaning against the wall, smoking a cigarette, holding a torch.
Rebb came to the vehicle, opened the back door for the dogs. ‘Sweet Jesus,’ he said, ‘you traded the dogs?’
They leapt on him, ecstatic.
‘Don’t blame me,’ said Cashin. ‘My mother did it. I thought you’d gone?’
‘Went, nothin there, come back this way,’ Rebb said. ‘Old bloke not walking too good. So I thought I might as well give him a hand, do a bit of work on the cathedral in between.’
They walked around, looked by torchlight at what Rebb had done.
‘Bit,’ said Cashin. ‘Call that a bit?’
‘Bern come around, give me a hand. Bad mouth on him, but he works.’
‘The works part is news to me. He’s got a good memory, that I know.’
‘Yeah?’ Rebb shone the light on a new wall, walked over and ran a finger along the pointing.
‘The day he brought the water tank. He remembered you from all those years ago, when you were kids. Played footy against you. Against the Companions camp.’
Rebb said, ‘Well, that’s news to me. Never heard of the Companions camp.’ He turned the torch on the dogs.
‘I’ve got a picture of you,’ said Cashin. ‘Eating an orange slice. Age about twelve.’
‘Never been twelve,’ said Rebb. ‘I could make a bunny pie. Took the popgun again.’
‘Anything happen to you there?’
Cashin thought Rebb smiled.
‘Just stayed the one day,’ Rebb said. ‘Didn’t like the food.’
‘I’ve got steak,’ said Cashin. ‘How’s that?’
‘That’ll do. The neighbour was here. Left something for you. Wrapped like a present.’
‘I need a present,’ said Cashin. ‘Long time since anyone gave me a present.’
‘Being alive’s a present,’ said Rebb. ‘Every minute of every hour of every day.’
IN THE late afternoon, Cashin took the dogs. They put up the first hares close to the house, the creatures grown bold in their absence. Then, in the meadow, they interrupted a communion of rabbits. The dogs ran themselves to exhaustion, put not a tooth on fur.
At the creek, the dogs strode in, got wet to the shoulder, stood in holes, scrambled, alarmed. Cashin got wet too, up to the knees, water inside his boots. He didn’t care, slopped up the hill, thinking about what he should do. In the end, he didn’t have to make a decision, he saw her coming down the slope from her house.
They met at the corner post, Rebb’s corner post, said hello. She looked thinner, better looking than he remembered.
‘They’re tired,’ she said. ‘What’ve you done to them?’
He summoned up saliva to speak. ‘Unfit,’ said Cashin. ‘Too fat, too slow. Spoilt. That’s going to change.’
‘How are you, Joe?’
‘Fine. I’m fine. Flesh wound. Plus I’m really brave and I never complain.’
Helen shook her head. ‘I wanted to come and see you but I thought…well, I don’t know what I thought. I thought you’d be surrounded by your family and your cop friends.’
The dogs took off, talk was boring, they wanted action.
‘Good thinking,’ said Cashin. ‘That’s the way it was, night and day. They worked shifts, family, cop friends, family.’
‘You prick. See Bobby Walshe on television?’
‘No.’
‘He said you and Dove deserved medals.’
‘For stupidity? I don’t think they’ve got that.’
Helen shook her head. ‘And the news about the resort?’
‘No.’
‘Erica Bourgoyne decided not to sell the Companions camp to Fyfe. She’s giving it to the state to be part of the coastal reserve. So there’s no access to the mouth and the whole resort project collapses.’
Cashin thought about t
he seat in the Companions hall, Erica in her office, the marks of tears on her cream silk shirt, the sobbing. She hadn’t watched them torture Pollard, that wasn’t right. Who had sat there?
‘That’s good,’ he said. ‘Leaves you free to concentrate on winning the election.’
‘I’m counting on getting at least one cop vote.’
‘Depends on a number of things falling into place. But we cops aren’t allowed to talk politics.’
‘Allowed to drink?’
‘My liver is in near-new condition. Nothing to do for weeks.’
They looked at each other, he broke away, saw the dusk in the creek hollow, the treetops moving on the hill. ‘I always meant to ask. When did your dad die?’
‘In 1988. He didn’t take a bend on the coast road. The year after we finished school. Why?’
‘Nothing. He signed Bourgoyne’s wife’s death certificate.’
‘Signed hundreds, I imagine.’
‘Yes.’
‘So. Come up for a drink? I could feed you.’
‘Is that party pies?’
‘We didn’t get around to them last time.’
‘Feed these beasts first,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back.’
‘Don’t get waylaid,’ she said.
‘Waylaid. I’ve never heard anyone say that word.’
‘You’re a work in progress,’ she said. ‘There are words to come.’
He set off up the rise, legs like logs, whistled the dogs, and he looked back and she had not moved, she was watching him.
‘Go home,’ he shouted. ‘Why don’t you just go home and put on the party pies.’
He woke lying on his side. Above the window blind was a line of daylight, the colour of smoke. He could feel her warmth against him and then she stirred and he felt her breath on the skin between his shoulderblades and then her lips moved against his spine, and then she pressed them to him and she kissed. The world opened, the day began, he felt that he was alive again, forgiven.
‘JOE?’
‘Yes.’
‘Carol Gehrig. Early for you?’
‘No.’
‘Joe, this is rubbish but last night, had a few wines, it came into me head.’
