by Jon Cleary
Clements nodded. Twenty-three years’ experience in the field gave you a feeling for reading the wind; without it, you might just as well sit at a desk reading papers. “Okay, we’ll put him on hold . . . Chess Hardstaff. We checked him ourselves, Curly and the others didn’t go near him, and he has a coupla hours where he could of committed the murder . . . Waring, the same . . . Billy Koowarra’s been eliminated—” Then he realized what he had said. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that . . . Your mate Fred Strayhorn.”
“He’s not my mate. But you can scratch him off the list. He’d have no motive for killing Sagawa. He might’ve come back to Collamundra to kill Chess Hardstaff, but that’s another matter.”
“Sure,” said Clements drily. “Don’t let’s confuse things. So who else have we got, except those whose names aren’t on the sheets, about nine and a half thousand other Collamundrans? There are the people who’ve got an interest in South Cloud. Doc Nothling and his missus, Amanda—but what motive would they have? Gus Dircks and his missus—no, we can forget Gus. He and his missus were still down in Sydney last Monday night—Mrs. Dircks is still there, she didn’t come home for the ball.”
“Why? The local MP’s wife not coming home for the biggest event of the year?”
“I gather she can’t stand a bar of Amanda Nothling. Any committee chaired by Mrs. Nothling doesn’t have Mrs. Dircks on it.”
“Who told you that?”
“Ida.”
“She tell you anything else?” About her husband, for instance?
“No.” Clements looked back at his sheets, as if a clue had just peeped out from between the lines.
Malone let Ida slide out of the conversation, back to her unhappiness. “What have we got on Narelle?” He told Clements of his walk back from church with Narelle Potter. “She said Curly had questioned her, but I can’t remember her getting a mention in the sheets.”
“She’s not here. This guy she said she was with Monday night—” He paused, not wanting to say it; but he had to: “I wonder if it’s Curly?”
“We’ll have to ask him, won’t we?” It was a task neither of them wanted. They did not suspect Baldock of being implicated in the murder of Sagawa, they just did not want to question him about his personal affairs. If he was unhappily married and had been sleeping with Narelle Potter, then it was not police business. Except, Malone told himself, they were checking on Narelle, not on Baldock. Though Curly would hardly see it that way. “Righto, what does that give us? Chess Hardstaff, Trevor Waring, young Phil Chakiros . . . I asked Narelle about her escort last night, the flash playboy Bert Truman. He drives a Merc.”
“Curly checked on him after you mentioned who owned Mercs. Truman’s in the clear. He was down in Sydney buying a plane—he takes delivery of it next week.”
“Well, someone’s making money, then . . . Righto, we’ve got three possible suspects who could’ve killed Sagawa—though Waring and Phil Chakiros are in the clear as far as last night’s crack at me is concerned. So that leaves only Hardstaff who might’ve killed Sagawa and then taken a shot at me.”
“Scobie—” Clements chewed his lip. “I think you’ve got an obsession about Chess Hardstaff. Maybe he killed his wife—what?—seventeen, eighteen years ago.”
“I know he did. I’ve got the feeling.”
“Okay. But that’s not our case. What would be his motive for killing the Jap?”
“He could’ve been trying to tell the Japs they weren’t wanted.”
“Why?”
“So’s he could take over South Cloud. Maybe he’s changed his mind about not wanting to be in it, now he wants it all for himself. From what I hear, cotton’s not like wool or wheat, its price doesn’t go up and down like a yo-yo.”
“Does he have that sort of money to buy „em out? Scobie, you’re inventing motives. Sure, I know you wouldn’t be the first cop who’s done it. But you and I have never done it before and if you wanna start now, count me out.”
It wasn’t the first time each had rebuked the other; but this morning Clements’s tone had a bluntness to it. Malone, put in his place, backed down. “You’re right. But if Ballistics rings at midday and says the bullets you sent down this morning match the one taken out of Sagawa’s body, what sort of headache does that give you?”
“That any one of nine-thousand-odd people in this town could hate both the Japs and Sydney cops. Or—” Then he shook his head. “No.”
“No what?”
“I was gunna say Sagawa’s killing could of been an accident. You told me at breakfast that young Phil said he and the other yahoos go out shooting up road signs at night. But if someone—not necessarily him and his mates—did shoot Sagawa by accident—the shot could of come from the main road, the bullet had lost most of its velocity by the time it entered his body—if his killing was an accident, then who took the shot at you last night?”
A light flickered at the back of Malone’s mind. “I think we ought to go back and see Doc Nothling.”
“Why him? Dr. Bedi is the one who did the autopsy.”
“You said Nothling had been born in Rangoon. What if something happened there during the war that made him a Jap-hater?”
“He was just a kid then, he was born in—” Clements flipped through the pages of his notebook. “In nineteen forty.”
“What if he’d lost a parent? Or both of them? Let’s call him up. Do you have his home phone number?”
Amanda Nothling answered the phone out at the Nothling property. “Oh, it’s you, Inspector. I believe you’re coming to our little party this evening. I’m looking forward to meeting your wife. You are coming, aren’t you?”
“Yes, we’re coming. Right now, though, I’d like to talk to your husband.”
“Police business?” Her voice hadn’t changed, she could have been asking what he was going to wear to her party; but almost as if he were on the end of a video-phone, Malone could see her hand tighten on the receiver at her end.
“Not really. He’s the GMO. We just want to check a few things. Where can I get in touch with him?”
She hesitated, as if debating whether she should tell him. Then: “He’s at the cotton gin with the Japanese. Do you still have your sergeant with you?” She said sergeant as if she had trouble recognizing such a lowly rank. He wondered how she had managed to stoop to talking to an inspector. “Would you care to bring him with you this evening? Will he know what to wear? Just casual, but not thongs and shorts.”
“I’m sure Sergeant Clements knows. He’ll like that.”
He hung up and Clements said, “What will I like?”
Malone told him. “Practise your manners and wear shoes. You’ll be meeting the squattocracy.” He looked at his watch. “Righto, let’s go out to the gin. Nothling’s out there. We’ll be back in time in case anything comes in from Ballistics.”
They had reached the door of the empty room when Baldock, in thongs, shorts and a sweater, came in. “It’s my day off, like I told you yesterday, but I’ve got some papers I wanna take home—” Then he became aware of the awkward silence of the two Sydney men. “Something wrong?”
Clements, glad for once that he was the junior man, left it to Malone.
“Curly—” He always hated these sort of personal questions. “Curly, is there anything between you and Narelle Potter?”
Even Baldock’s bald head seemed to frown. “With Narelle? Christ, where did you get that?”
Malone explained, something he knew he would not have done if he had been questioning someone not in the force. “I had to ask, Curly. You know her, you obviously like her more than a lot of people in this town do—”
“That doesn’t bloody well put me in bed with her! Jesus, you’re becoming paranoid!”
That was twice he had been accused of that. “Righto, I apologize. But can you nominate someone who might be having an affair with her, a married man—”
Baldock brushed by them and went on into the room. “I’ll think about it!”
“I think by the time this is finished,” said Clements, “we won’t have a friend in town.”
They drove out through another brilliant day, the sky absolutely cloudless, the horizon of low hills to the east as sharp as an etched line. Malone felt a certain comfort heading east: that way lay the known. Or at least partly known.
As they got closer to the cotton farm they saw the faint haze of dust; though it was Sunday, the harvesters were at work again. The Japanese bosses had to be impressed that they hadn’t invested their money in a nation of bludgers. Of course they were paying double time for their confidence in the workers, but what the hell? Ray Chakiros would probably look on it as part of the war reparations, though Malone doubted that he would ever pay double time to his workers.
When Clements pulled the car up alongside the three vehicles, one of them a beige Mercedes, outside the farm office, they could hear the dull roar inside the giant thunder-box that was the gin. They saw Barry Liss come out of the huge shed, slip off his ear-muffs, recognize them and wave. Almost immediately he was followed by Koga, the three Japanese executives and Nothling. Liss moved into the annexe where Sagawa’s body had been discovered, and the other five men came across towards the office. Nothling looked outsized beside the thinner and shorter Japanese.
“Morning, chaps!” The bonhomie washed over the two detectives like a wave. “Even the coppers working on a Sunday? What’s the country coming to?”
The four Japanese looked at each other, then at him. They looked like men who fervently hoped they would not fall ill, not if they had to have Nothling attend to them. He was their partner in the cotton venture and they looked as if they regretted that, too.
“May we see you a moment, Doc?” said Malone and made his excuses to the Japanese.
Nothling, the bonhomie suddenly falling away like a surgery gown he had discarded because the operation was off, hesitated, then nodded. Malone and Clements led him across to the Mercedes.
“Your car?”
Nothling was stone-cold sober this morning; there was no sign of hangover, he had not been at the ball last night. “I told you, I drive an LTD. This is my wife’s.”
“Oh yes, I forgot.” He hadn’t. It had been a ploy to drain a little more of the confidence out of Nothling. “How are the jockeys making out at the hospital?”
“They’ll all recover. No thanks to the Abos. I understand you’re not going to charge them?”
“None of the locals, no. That’s Inspector Narvo’s turf, not ours.”
“The territorial imperative, eh? We have the same thing in the medical profession. Very convenient at times. It’s a pity it didn’t prevail in the Sagawa case.”
Malone ignored that, decided to bowl at the wicket. “Doctor, we understand you were born in Rangoon in Burma.”
Nothling’s face went stiff; even the double chins seemed to firm. He had soft brown eyes that, in a thinner face, might have appeared large; now they narrowed. The more Malone saw of him, the more he wondered what Amanda Nothling saw in him. But he had long ago given up trying to look at a man through a woman’s eyes. It was the worst sort of astigmatism.
“Yes. How did you get that information?”
“Is it something you didn’t want known?”
“No-o. I just don’t understand why it should interest you.”
“Did you spend the war in Rangoon?”
“No. My mother brought me out—I was only eighteen months old. We were on the last ship to leave. My mother took me home to England.”
“And your father?”
“He was manager of a rice mill up-country . . . Ah, now I’m beginning to understand.” Nothling looked across at the four Japanese who stood talking in a group outside the office door. “They don’t know any of this.”
“Any of what?”
“Come on, old chap! Don’t let us beat about the bush. My father was imprisoned in Mergui camp, he died there from ill-treatment by the camp commandant, Major Nibote. Who was tried and executed as a war criminal and who, into the bargain, was Mr. Sagawa’s father. But you know all that, am I not right, old chap?”
Malone glanced at Clements, then back at Nothling. “No, we didn’t know all of it, Doc. All we knew was that you were born in Rangoon and that Sagawa’s father was a war criminal.”
“But you’d made an educated guess there might be more?”
“That’s one of the things that keeps us going, educated guesses. That and luck.”
“A further educated guess is that I might have killed Ken Sagawa out of revenge for what his father had done to mine?”
“It’s a possibility.”
“It’s a flight of fancy.”
“They keep us going, too.”
“You’re wrong, old chap. I’m not the vengeful sort. I don’t fight other generations’ wars.”
“Where were you last Monday night, Doc, between eight o’clock and midnight?”
Malone waited for Nothling to smile with wry amusement, which had been his tone up till now; but he didn’t. “Do I incriminate myself if I say I’d rather not answer any more questions till I’ve talked to my lawyer?”
“Not necessarily. Who is your lawyer—Trevor Waring?”
Nothling did smile then. “Another educated guess? Or did he tell you he was my lawyer?”
“No. It’s just that I wonder what all the other legal eagles in town do for clients. Trevor seems to have all the business that counts.”
“Yes, Trevor acts for me. He’s the Hardstaff family lawyer. To answer your first question—I was at home last Monday night. All night.”
Drinking yourself into a stupor? But Malone couldn’t ask that without incriminating Anju Bedi. “Your wife or someone will corroborate that?”
“Oh, indubitably, old man. Wives always support their husbands, don’t they?”
Malone noted a sudden change in the climate: as if Nothling had suddenly become recklessly relaxed. As if he didn’t care what questions might be asked of him.
Clements had one: “Did you blackball Mr. Sagawa when he applied for membership of the Veterans Legion?”
“I don’t belong to the Legion.” The momentary recklessness had gone as abruptly as it had come. “I think I’ve had enough of this, chaps. I didn’t kill Sagawa.”
Malone nodded, turned away; but Clements said, “How well do you know Narelle Potter, Doc?”
Nothling, too, had been about to turn away. “Only as a private patient. Don’t tell me she’s a suspect, too?”
“No. It’s about something else.”
“I only know her as a patient, so anything I know about her is confidential. Now are we finished? This is getting tiresome.”
He sounds like his father-in-law, thought Malone. “Thanks for your time, Doc. We’ll see you this evening. Socially.”
Nothling raised his eyebrows. “You’re coming to our party?”
“Your wife asked us. Didn’t she tell you?”
“I leave all that sort of thing to her. She’s a continual surprise.”
He strode off towards the four Japanese still standing outside the office door. Malone said, “Do you think he suddenly looked worried?”
“Something upset him. All of a sudden he looked as if he wanted a double whisky. Where do we go now?”
“Back to the station—wait a minute. Here comes Barry Liss.”
Liss, ear-muffs hanging round his lean neck like growths, came towards them. “You wanna come with me?” he said and kept walking right past Malone and Clements; after a glance at each other, they followed him. Malone, looking back over his shoulder, saw Nothling and the four Japanese stop talking and stare after them.
When the two detectives caught up with Liss, Malone said, “Your bosses don’t look happy, Barry. You want to leave it and talk to us when you knock off work?”
“No worries, mate. They’re never gunna fi
re me, not right now in the middle of the harvest. I’m the only one around here who’s a mechanic, Mr. Fix-it. It’s not me who wants to talk to you, it’s one of the guys on the harvesters. His name’s Alf Pynchon.”
“Before we go over to see your mate, Barry . . . Were you at the Legion club last night?”
“Yeah.” Liss was puzzled by the question. “Why?”
“How long? Say from eleven o’clock till one?”
“Yeah, the missus and me left when they closed down. That was one o’clock, it always is Sat’day night.”
“Was young Phil Chakiros there right up till closing time?”
“Phil Chakiros?” The lean face gullied with concentration. “Yeah, yeah he was. Him and some of his galah mates. They’re not my cuppa tea. I don’t even pass the time of day with „em. Why, what’s he been up to?”
“Nothing,” said Malone. “I guess it was a case of mistaken identity.”
“He’s a pain in the arse. But then, so’s his old man.”
They crossed the entrance road and entered the fields, walking between the rows, the unharvested white bushes stretching away on either side of them; it was like being in the middle of a frothing surf that had suddenly gone flat as the wind turned. They came to a harvester clacking its way through the bushes, its barbed spindles plucking the seed cotton from the open bolls. Liss waved to the operator in the high glass cabin and at once the man switched off his machine and swung down to the ground.
Liss introduced the two detectives, then said, “I better get back to the gin. Don’t make it too long, Inspector, just in case the Nips start cracking the whip. They already got the idea if you stop for a breather, you’re laying down on the job. We got a long way to go to educate „em. Hooroo and good luck. We all wanna see you nail the bastard who killed Kenny Sagawa.”
He left them on that and Malone and Clements turned to Alf Pynchon. He was as lean as Liss, but taller, with a long thin face, a long nose and skin scarred by sun cancers. He had the air of a patient man, one who had lived on the land all his life and knew Nature couldn’t be hurried. Malone wondered if he was one of the small farmers on whom the banks had foreclosed, who was now reduced to working for someone else; worst of all, for foreigners. But he had nodded when Barry Liss had said that all the workers for South Cloud wanted the police to catch the killer of Kenji Sagawa.
