Pride's Harvest

by Jon Cleary

  Malone took his time, finishing his mouthful of lamb, then cutting some baked pumpkin in half. At last he said, holding his gaze steady against Dircks’s, “I understand you perfectly well, Minister. You want me to close the case, not make waves, just go back to Sydney and leave everything to the locals. Right?”

  “Put as bluntly as that . . . Well, yes, that’s the gist of it.”

  “I’ll have to talk to my superiors in Sydney.” He chanced his arm: “It could go up to the Commissioner. He takes a personal interest in anything I’m working on.”

  Dircks looked disbelieving, but also uncertain. In his short time as Minister he had come to know that the Police Department had its own way of working; more so, perhaps, than any other public service department. The men responsible for law and order, it seemed to him, had their own laws. The conservative coalition had not been in government for fifteen years and its ministers were learning that power, no matter what the voters might say about its democratic transfer, was an abstract, not something that could be handed over in a file. In the Police Department there was power at every level, something he had not yet come to terms with.

  “The Commissioner and I get on very well together,” he said, though that was not strictly true; he hardly knew John Leeds, a reserved man. “How come he takes a personal interest in what you do?”

  “Past association,” said Malone and closed up his face, as if to imply there were police secrets, as indeed there were, that even ministers should not be privy to.

  Dircks neatly backed down; weak-willed men are adept at a few things. “Well, I don’t want to bring politics into this—there was too much of that from the last government.” He waited for Malone to comment, but got no satisfaction. Then he went on, “You have to realize, out here things are different from what you’re used to, I mean in a community like ours. Everybody has to live with everybody else.”

  “I understand that was what Mr. Sagawa was trying to do. But somebody didn’t want to live with him.” Malone had finished the main course; he picked up the menu. “Do you mind if I have dessert? I’ve got a sweet tooth.”

  “So have I. I can recommend the bread-and-butter pudding, a real old-fashioned one. Yes, I never thought anything like this would ever happen to Sagawa.”

  “There’s Mr. Koga. He could be next. Bread-and-butter pudding,” he told the stout waitress as she loomed up beside their table.

  “The same for you, Mr. Dircks?”

  “No. No, I think I’ve had enough.” Dircks waited till the waitress had gone, then he leaned forward, his wide-set eyes seeming to close together on either side of the two deep lines that had suddenly appeared between them. “Christ Almighty, I hadn’t thought of that! You’d better stay, catch the murderer before he has the Japs pulling out of the district. They not only grow the cotton, they buy ninety per cent of the crop for their own mills.”

  “Then you don’t think Billy Koowarra did it?”

  “Forget him! Just find out who killed Ken Sagawa.”

  “Mr. Dircks, you said you had an interest in South Cloud . . .”

  Dircks remained leaning forward on the table for a long moment; then he eased himself back, said quietly, “Yes. The shares are in my wife’s name. It’s common knowledge, you’ll find it in the declaration of MPs’ interests down at Parliament House in Sydney. There’s nothing to hide.”

  “I didn’t suggest there was. But I think it might be an idea if you stayed at arm’s length from me and the investigating team, don’t you? You know what the media are like.”

  “I own the local paper, the Chronicle. You don’t have to worry about it.”

  That would explain why no reporter had tried to by-pass Baldock to get to him or Clements. “What about the radio station?”

  “Chess Hardstaff owns that.”

  I might have guessed it. “I wasn’t thinking so much of the local media as those down in Sydney.” He usually tried to keep the media at his own arm’s length; but they were always useful as a weapon, especially with politicians. “How much interest do you have in South Cloud? Or how much is in your wife’s name?”

  “Twenty per cent.” The answer sounded a reluctant one.

  “Any other local shareholders?”

  Dircks hesitated, looking at his front to see if he had spotted it with any more gravy. “Well, I guess you’ll look it up in the company register. Yes, there are two others. Max Nothling, Chess Hardstaff’s son-in-law, and one of the town’s solicitors, Trevor Waring.”

  Malone didn’t mention that he had already met Waring; but he wondered why Sean Carmody’s son-in-law had said nothing about his interest in the cotton farm. “How much do they hold?”

  “Ten per cent each. The Japanese own sixty per cent.”

  The waitress brought Malone his bread-and-butter pudding; it looked and tasted as good as Dircks had claimed. Dircks watched him eat, seemed undecided whether to say anything further, then went ahead, “If you have to arrest someone for the murder, ring me first.”

  Malone stopped with a mouthful of pudding halfway to his mouth; his mouth was open, as if in surprise, a reaction he never showed. “Why?”

  “I just don’t want to be here when it happens. If it’s someone I know—and chances are it will be—well . . .” He abruptly stood up; that did surprise Malone, though he managed not to show it. “I think it’ll be better if you and I don’t see each other again, Inspector.”

  Malone swallowed the mouthful of pudding. “I couldn’t agree more, Minister.”

  “The bill’s taken care of,” said Dircks and made it sound as if it had come off ministerial expenses and not out of his own pocket. He was not used to paying to be put in his place by one of his own minions.

  He left on that, moving swiftly, jerking his head at greetings but not stopping to shake hands with any of those who hailed him, going against the grain of twenty years in politics: any hand ignored could be a hand that might vote against you. Malone was aware of the sudden hush that seemed to have fallen on the big room; the other diners were looking at him, as if to accuse him of upsetting their local member. He went back to finishing his bread-and-butter pudding, glad that something tasted good.

  II

  “I got in touch with Andy Graham,” said Clements. “He’s getting on to Tokyo right away. How did you get on with the Minister for Free Beers?”

  When Dircks had first come to office he had put out three press releases a day, one of which stated that, to polish the New South Wales police’s image as squeaky clean, no member of the force was to accept the occasional beer from a hospitable hotel-keeper, not even if dying of thirst. Hence his title, one of several bestowed on him by the squeaky clean.

  Malone told him of the luncheon conversation. They were sitting at Baldock’s desk in the detectives’ room and he laid the conversation out word for word in front of the local man. He was still a little unsure of where Baldock’s loyalties lay, but had decided that, if he wanted Baldock to trust him, he had to offer his own trust. He had found, in the past, that often it was the only way to pick the lock in a closed door.

  Baldock nodded, not surprised by what Malone had told them. “It figures, with Gus Dircks. I’d bet Chess Hardstaff put him up to it.”

  “I didn’t like his suggestion that we lay the Sagawa murder on Billy Koowarra.” Malone made the remark casually, but he was watching carefully for any flicker of expression in Baldock’s eyes.

  There was none, except for a frown of annoyance on the broad forehead. “That would be too bloody easy. And it would raise a riot with the Abos, they’d tear the town apart. Jesus, some politicians are dumb!”

  “Speaking of Sagawa,” said Clements, “I went out to the cotton farm again and had a talk with Mr. Koga. He told me that Sagawa had had two threatening phone calls a coupla days before he was murdered.”

  “He didn’t tell me that!” Baldock was genuinely annoyed.

  Clements tried to soothe him. “I don’t think there’s anything personal in t
his, Curly, but Koga doesn’t trust any of the locals. He’s scared out of his pants.”

  “He doesn’t have any cause to be. Not with me.” Baldock looked hurt, as if he had been a friend of Koga’s for life.

  “Is Koga still living out at the manager’s house?” Malone asked.

  Clements nodded. “I gather a local woman comes in to clean for him, but he and Sagawa did their own cooking when they wanted Jap food. Otherwise they ate here in town, usually at the Chinese place. I got the idea that neither of them thought much of barbecued steak or sausages or a hamburger. I think Koga’s stomach would be even more delicate since the murder.”

  Clements’s comments were rarely delicate. Malone said, “What do you think about the threats, Curly? Trevor Waring told me last night that Sagawa had been to see him about some threatening letters he’d got.”

  “For Chrissake!” Baldock ran his hand over his bald head, clawed at it as if wishing he had hair to tear out. “Why didn’t he come to us with those complaints? Why go to Trevor Waring?”

  “Maybe because Waring, I gather, is the South Cloud lawyer. He’s also a partner in it.” He saw Baldock frown again. “Didn’t you know that?”

  “No. Why would I, if Waring didn’t broadcast it? It’s not a public company.”

  “Sure, why should you? Why would Waring keep it quiet, though? Did you know Doc Nothling and Gus Dircks were also partners?”

  “No, I didn’t know Dircks was. But yes, I knew about Max Nothling—I think everybody in the district knew it. The Doc runs off at the mouth sometimes, especially when he’s had a few.”

  “Does he drink much?”

  Baldock pursed his lips, then nodded. “Too much for a doctor. We’ve had him turn up as GMO to pass on a corpse and I’ve had to talk one or two of the uniformed guys out of handing him a ticket for driving under the influence. He hasn’t always been like that, only the last few years or so.”

  “Why is he kept on as GMO?”

  “It would be too much of a scandal to sack him. Chess Hardstaff would be down on Hugh Narvo like a ton of bricks if Hugh, or any of us, for that matter, put in a bad report on him. He’s a good doctor, when he’s sober. I have to say that’s most of the time. He just lapses, that’s all.”

  “Did he come here to inspect Koowarra’s body?”

  “No, he was out at one of the properties on his rounds, I believe. Anyhow, he was somewhere else. Dr. Bedi came and told us to move it to the hospital.”

  “Who’s Dr. Beddy? How do you spell his name?” said Clements, always the note-taker.

  “B-E-D-I, Dr. Anju Bedi, and she’s a she, not a he. An Indian, from somewhere in the Himalayas, I think. Not a bad sort,” he added. “And a good doctor, too, so they tell me up at the hospital.”

  “Would Doc Nothling be at the hospital now?”

  Baldock looked at his watch. “He should be, he’s usually there from two till four. You want me to take you up there?”

  “No, I’ll walk up with Russ. I need the exercise—I had two helpings of bread-and-butter pudding.”

  Baldock nodded appreciatively. “Narelle serves a good meal, doesn’t she? She serves a lot else, so my wife says. I wouldn’t know.” The lechery in his eye made a mockery of the piety in his voice. “She’s a bit of a fool, Narelle, playing around the way she does. Everybody talks,” he said, seemingly unaware of his own contribution.

  Malone felt, rather than saw, Clements shift uneasily in his chair. Not looking at his sidekick, he said to Baldock, “Go down and see her, ask her to find a room for Mr. Koga. I want him in the hotel with me and Russ.”

  “But the pub’s full up!”

  “Curly, use your influence on Narelle. If she won’t listen to reason, charge her with something. What’s the one you use, Russ?”

  Clements had regained his composure. “Obscene language in a public place, abusing a police officer. It never fails, Curly.”

  Baldock grinned. “They talk about us bastards from the bush, but we’re not a patch on you guys. Okay, I’ll talk to Narelle, she can tell some poor coot who’s booked in weeks ago for tonight and tomorrow night that she made a mistake, that she double-booked. She’s—maybe I shouldn’t say this, she’s a good sort otherwise—but she’s a bit of a bigot when it comes to non-whites, Asians and that.” Evidently he could forget his own prejudice about Lebanese and other Wogs.

  “Tough titty—or maybe I shouldn’t say that about a lady. But I want Koga in the Mail Coach with Russ and me. At least at night. I don’t want us called out to the farm to find another body chopped up by those spikes. I’m sure you don’t, either.”

  Malone and Clements went down the stairs and out into the street. A slight wind had sprung up, coming from the south-west, cooling the town; but it was a dry wind, no hint of rain in it, and there was still the promise of a fine weekend. The main street and the side streets were now full of cars and trucks, many of them dust-caked. Today, instead of Saturday, was shopping day. Tomorrow everyone would be at the races; no one was going to allow the murder of a Japanese and the suicide of an Aborigine to spoil the Big Weekend. Yet as Malone and Clements walked the four blocks to the district hospital, they both remarked the total absence of Aborigines. In a town of this size the percentage of them would have been small anyway; yet Malone, in the drive into town yesterday afternoon, without looking for any of them, had seen groups loitering on almost every corner. This afternoon there was none in sight.

  “Has someone told the boongs to get outa town?” Clements had his own prejudices, but it was usually in language rather than deed. The tongue is the loosest of cannons.

  But when they got to the hospital a small group of Aborigines stood under a peppercorn tree in the hospital’s small front garden. The building was a one-storeyed structure stretched across perhaps two hundred feet, with two wings running back to the rear. It was built of red brick, featureless and undistinguished, a monument to the dull creativity of government architects of the 1920s. An ambulance station, its doors open to expose two ambulances, stood on a narrow lot to one side.

  Wally Mungle detached himself from the group as Malone and Clements came in the open front gate. “You after me, Inspector?”

  “No, Wally, we came over to see Dr. Nothling. I’m sorry about Billy. Is that his family?”

  “Yeah, his mum and dad, a coupla his brothers, an uncle and aunt. And my mum, she was an aunt, too.”

  “I’d like to meet them.”

  Mungle looked dubious for a moment; then he led the way across to the shade of the peppercorn tree and introduced Malone and Clements. The Aborigines just nodded, but none of them said anything. Malone and Clements were police and strangers into the bargain.

  Mungle was embarrassed by the silence; but Malone was gazing at Billy Koowarra’s father. He was holding his cap in his hands now, but his hair still stuck out on either side like a Viking’s helmet horns; he was no longer drunk but he was still suffering the effects of his drinking bout. He stared back at Malone, but it was obvious he did not recognize the plainclothes cop who had gently steered him out of the way of the traffic in the main street. Shock had not only sobered him, it had shrunk him till he could take in only one thought: his son was dead.

  “Uncle Les,” said Mungle, “it wasn’t the Inspector’s fault Billy did what he did. He wanted Billy released.”

  The father said slowly, not looking at all at Malone, “Don’t matter who’s to blame. Billy’s still dead, only nineteen.”

  He had the voice one found so often in his race, deep and soft and sounding as if coming up through rough pebbles in his throat. He had a deeply lined, leathery face and eyes that had been affected by trachoma; no matter what he had looked like when drunk, he now looked old enough to have been Billy’s grandfather. Sadness lent him a dignity he had not had this morning, but, Malone thought, it was a hell of a way to have earned it.

  Malone nodded; he had no words that would not have sounded hollow and hypocritical in his mouth. He went up the step
s into the hospital, followed by Clements and, after a moment’s hesitation, by Wally Mungle. They found Max Nothling in the end office of the doctors’ wing. With him was Dr. Bedi, an attractive plump woman in her early thirties, with placid eyes and an air of patience that suggested nothing short of the end of the world would disturb her. Malone wondered what Indian catastrophes, floods, cyclones, religious riots, had prepared her for life here in this unexciting Australian outback town.

  “Ah, the gendarmes!”

  Nothling rose from his chair and put out his hand as Mungle introduced the two Sydney men. The doctor was not quite as tall as Malone, but he was bulkier than Clements. Most of his weight was lard; there might have been muscle under the fat but it wasn’t easily discernible. He had thick, greying hair and a two-chinned face in which the effects of his drinking showed like a watermark, except that he usually drank something much stronger than water. He was fifty years old; he looked the sort of man who might catch a glimpse of old age but die before reaching it. Surprisingly, the hand that took hold of Malone’s had a lot of strength within its fat. Malone just wondered how strong and steady it would be performing any surgery.

  “Well, to what do we owe the pleasure of this visit?” He had a loud, fruity voice; his phrases, it seemed, were also fruity. “The late lamented Mr. Sagawa or our departed Abo friend? Sorry, Wally,” he added, as if for the moment he had forgotten Mungle was in the room. “No offence.”

  “I don’t think Billy cares very much now what he’s called,” said Mungle. “Abo, boong, coon, anything.”

  “No, I suppose not,” said Nothling, taking the rebuff better than Malone had expected. “Well, which one is it, Inspector?”

  “Billy Koowarra is not our case. Sergeant Clements and I would like to ask a few questions about Sagawa. You examined the body out at the gin?”