Back to the Pilliga

by Tony Parsons

‘Might have to get immigration involved,’ said Morris.

  ‘How long has Brewster been back in Australia?’ I asked.

  ‘Two years or thereabouts,’ said Milson.

  ‘Do you think there’s enough in what I’ve said for me to call Ballinger with all this?’ I asked Ming. Though I didn’t really need to consult him, I thought he was a good cop and that it might help keep him on side.

  ‘It’s worth going through what you just told us. It’s definitely feasible that Brewster, Ted Challis and this Zane character are the men we should be looking for. If any of the Challises are holding Caroline Clemenger they’ll be complicit too,’ said Morris.

  ‘I think they are the men,’ I said. ‘I’ll give him a call and see what he thinks.’

  Sophie Walters answered. I knew her from my time in the force. She was some kind of assistant to Ballinger these days.

  ‘Sophie, I need to talk to the Super. Can you please tell him that Lachie Sinclair wants to talk to him and that it’s urgent.’

  Ballinger was soon on the phone and he listened carefully to what I told him and agreed to seek information from immigration about the arrival into Australia of an American going by the name of Zane Reid. After we’d talked a bit more I told him it’d be a big help if he could send me up a female officer with weaponry experience as soon as possible because I intended going out to the Gorge to start staking out the Challises and Brewster. He said he’d get back to me.

  Morris expressed surprise at the cooperation I was receiving from head office when I got off the phone. ‘Do you do this sort of thing very often, Lachie?’ he asked. ‘I mean, ask to borrow female police officers for your cases?’

  ‘I’ve never had to do so before,’ I admitted. ‘But Ballinger knows the police will get the credit for anything I achieve.’

  Ming and I discussed a few more aspects of the case and I wound things up, keen to head off and start planning things. As we parted Ming said, ‘Ballinger said you were as good as they come. I’m beginning to see why.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘If you can’t inspire trust and faith with the people you work with, the game’s not worth playing. Look what happened in Queensland with rotten apples at the top. And New South Wales has had its share of problems too. If we nail this mob I hope you and your team come out of it really well.’ And I meant every word. Police cop a lot of criticism at times but all in all they do a great job.

  ‘Thank you for all the hard work you’ve been doing,’ he said. ‘Where are you heading now?’

  ‘I’m going out to Kamilaroi to see Mum,’ I said, thinking it’d be best to wait until I heard about the possibility of a female officer before rushing out to the Gorge. When I arrived there my first preference would be to appear as a genuine wildlife photographer out camping with my girlfriend.

  I left Coonabarabran Police Station hoping I had enough information to help me locate and hopefully rescue Caroline Clemenger. Despite some mis-steps Brewster and Reid had to be reasonably smart or they’d have been picked up before now. They hadn’t left fingerprints anywhere so the police couldn’t identify them. Then again, all crims make mistakes and Brewster and Co had made a couple of boomers.

  Still, it wasn’t an open and shut case. If the police raided Brewster’s property prematurely and it turned out to be clean they’d have egg on their faces. And if Caroline Clemenger was being held elsewhere, any police action could precipitate her death.

  Yes, Caroline Clemenger would have to be winkled out of the crims’ hands after careful investigation.

  CHAPTER 13

  Putting the Clemenger case out of my mind for the moment, I drove out towards Kamilaroi. I couldn’t wait to see Mum, who still lived in the big Kamilaroi homestead we’d grown up in. These days she spent a lot of her time either gardening or painting landscapes.

  I had to admit as I drove up the driveway to Kamilaroi that everything on the old place looked in great order. Much as I didn’t like Stuart, it was clear that, like Father, he was a very competent property manager. The big hayshed was packed to the roof with bales of lucerne hay and all the grain silos – there were a dozen of them in a row – were no doubt full of feed oats and corn. The machinery was all under cover and there were no weeds growing about the sheds.

  Kamilaroi had always been noted for both its sheep and cattle. Looking at the sheep near the driveway, they were as even as peas in a pod and had clearly been crutched fairly recently. The property’s Hereford cattle had won numerous on-the-hoof awards and I noticed that many of the cows and younger cattle had red-brown markings around their eyes rather than the pure white head of old. Eye cancer was a perennial problem with white-faced Herefords so Stuart must have bought a couple of pricey bulls to breed more colour into them. He was a good manager, right enough.

  I pulled up in the gravel drive and walked up the wide stone-flagged pathway to the front steps. It gave me a queer feeling to see the old homestead again. It felt so familiar. The long front verandah was almost exactly as I remembered it, with plenty of big easy chairs and pot plants. I felt a terrible pang when I walked past the window of Kenneth’s room. I’d never get over his death as long as I lived.

  Music was coming from inside the house so I rang the bell quite vigorously. The look of joy on Mum’s face when she answered the door was wonderful to see.

  ‘Lachie,’ she cried. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Coming to see you,’ I said, taking her in my arms with a lump in my throat. ‘How are you, Mum?’

  ‘A lot better for seeing you,’ she said.

  I felt warmed by her words as well as regretful and guilty that I hadn’t been up here since my father’s funeral.

  After exchanging kisses I followed Mum through to the kitchen where the kettle was in its usual place on the big Aga stove. A Chopin etude was coming from a CD player on the kitchen table and Mum leaned across and turned it off.

  ‘What good timing,’ she said. ‘You’re just in time for smoko. Oh, dear I don’t have anything freshly made apart from a few old Anzac biscuits. If I’d known you were coming I’d have made shortbread,’ she said.

  ‘Anzacs will be wonderful, Mum. I’ve come to see you, not sample your larder,’ I said.

  ‘Since when have you not wanted to eat?’ she said, smiling. ‘I’ll run you up some shortbread in no time at all.’

  ‘That’s great,’ I said, happily. ‘How are you really, Mum?’

  ‘I’m as good as gold, Lachie. Physically, I’ve never felt better. I won first prize in the Coonabarabran art competition recently,’ she said proudly.

  ‘Yeah, Flora told me your painting was going great guns.’

  ‘You’ve seen Flora? Why didn’t she ring and tell me?’

  ‘I wanted to surprise you. Also, I’m up here on sensitive work involving some local people and if word gets round that I’m in the district it might compromise things. In fact I wouldn’t mind running my car into the garage alongside yours to avoid anyone seeing it.’ I said. ‘Are you expecting any visitors?’

  ‘Either Stuart or Nicole call in every other day and sometimes one or the other has lunch with me. Nicole comes when Stuart is going to be away all day. How long are you staying?’

  ‘I can only stay the day and night with you for the moment, but I’m hoping if I can close out this case reasonably quickly I’ll be able to stay for a bit longer,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t been back for a while, Mum. I’m always so busy and I’m virtually a one-man show. I’ve got a secretary who helps out part time and an ex-cop who sometimes helps with overflow work but it’s still hard to get a break.’

  ‘Oh, Lachie, I do wish you would get out of security work and come back home to where you belong,’ she sighed.

  ‘I’d never entertain coming back while Stuart is here. You know that. I’m too used to running my own show,’ I said.

  ‘But you could build a house somewhere else on the place,’ she said.

  ‘How are the kids? And Nicole?’ I asked, cha
nging the subject.

  ‘Don’t let them hear you call them “kids”. Vickie finished ag college last year. She worked so hard and I was so proud of her. But she and Stuart seem to have been arguing almost nonstop since the day she came back. Shelley’s great and Maureen started at boarding school this year,’ she said.

  ‘That’s no good about Vickie and Stuart,’ I said. ‘Poor kid. You should come down and stay with me for a while, I’ve got the house in good shape,’ I said.

  ‘And what would I do all day while you’re at work? I have my garden to water, my painting to do and my grandchildren to help out with. I’m never lonely, Lachie,’ she said.

  ‘What chance have I got against all that?’ I said.

  Mum’s face turned more serious now and she said ‘I want you to know that your father was proud of you at the finish and I’m glad he did the right thing by you. He could have left you without a penny. I know he could be an aggressive bore and his attitude to women was terrible, but there were compensations for me, Lachie . . . Like you children, this lovely old house and garden. And Stuart is very kind to me if not to other people,’ she said.

  ‘Looks like he’s managing the place well,’ I said diplomatically.

  ‘Are you still friends with that nice Luke Stirling? I thought Judy was a lovely person,’ said Mum, moving on to easier ground.

  ‘Yes, Luke is still my best mate and we still go fishing together. He and Judy helped me a lot with the house after the divorce,’ I said. ‘Now, are you going to show me your paintings?’ I asked.

  We spent an enjoyable hour or so looking at the garden and going through some of Mum’s more recent paintings, which were very impressive. Her prize-winning painting was particularly good. She’d originally taken up art to distract herself from the pain of Kenneth’s death. She put her improvement down to lessons and all the time she had now to devote to her painting.

  After we’d thoroughly inspected the paintings Mum showed me some of Vickie’s photography. ‘She got interested in photography after you sent us some of your shots travelling around Australia. I bought her the camera she took these with and the extra lens to go with it,’ said Mum. ‘Vickie probably didn’t need such an expensive camera but she was very uptight after a row with her father about her desire to get more involved in the management of Kamilaroi. They ended up having a blazing row. She was furious about Stuart’s point blank refusal to allow her to show sheep and cattle again. She’d set her heart on doing that when she left college. Stuart seemed to have closed all the avenues to her doing what she was keen to do. And then there’s . . .’ she started, then hesitated.

  ‘There’s . . . ?’ I prompted.

  ‘They wouldn’t want me to say anything and it’s not your problem, Lachie. You’ve got other matters to worry about,’ she said.

  ‘Who are “they” and what isn’t my problem?’ I asked gently.

  ‘I’ll talk to you about it after you finish your work here. You’ve obviously got some important things to deal with right now and your head shouldn’t be cluttered up with other things. What do you think of Vickie’s pictures?’ she asked.

  Looking through the photo album of Vickie’s photos, there had been a steady improvement in picture layout with a big jump in quality which must have been after she began using the new camera. A couple that featured the Warrumbungles were especially noteworthy.

  ‘Who took Vickie to the Warrumbungles?’ I asked.

  ‘I did, Lachie. Girls Vickie’s age shouldn’t go to bush places on their own,’ she said.

  I smiled at that. There were creeps who bashed and raped women older than Mum. She wouldn’t have been a deterrent if a bloke wanted to harm Vickie.

  ‘And you needn’t smile in that condescending way, Lachie. I still carry a shotgun under the front seat of the car,’ she said.

  ‘You could be arrested for that. It’s called going armed in public,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t be so legalistic, Lachie. There’s no telling when you might have to use a gun in the country. If it comes to that, I bet you carry one yourself,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah, but I have a special dispensation to carry them,’ I protested. ‘Anyway I was only joking. Mum.’

  ‘That’s all right then. Anyway Vickie and I have been up there a few times now. She’s a lovely girl and it’s unfortunate Stuart can’t get his head around a woman helping out with the running of Kamilaroi,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t matter how much Nicole or I talk to him about his sexism, it’s just so ingrained in him.’

  I had never heard Mum criticise Stuart in such a fashion so matters really must have come to a head. Notwithstanding, it was very pleasant to sit with her and chat about my nieces and nephew as well as things going on around the district and Kamilaroi.

  Mum had just started telling me about a friend of hers whose husband had cancer when we heard the sound of a vehicle on the drive. Mum went over to the window and looked out. ‘It’s Nicole, and Vickie’s with her,’ she said, her expression suddenly grave.

  CHAPTER 14

  Nicole and Vickie both stopped dead when they came into the lounge room and saw me. Next thing, Vickie had run over and thrown her arms round my neck and almost strangled me.

  ‘Uncle Lachie, you bad bad person. Why didn’t you tell us you were coming?’

  ‘I couldn’t, Vickie. I’m up here on a hush-hush work trip. You mustn’t let on that you’ve seen me,’ I said.

  Vickie stepped back and looked at me with shining eyes. ‘But how exciting.’ Vickie had a highly coloured idea of the life I led, stemming from her passion for reading all manner of crime novels. She imagined my life as a kind of thrill-a-minute existence.

  After a pause Nicole said, ‘Lachie, how lovely to see you,’ in her soft, throaty voice. Naturally, as someone more experienced in the ways of the world than her daughter, she no doubt guessed that any hush-hush work visit might entail more danger than excitement.

  ‘Nanna’s just been showing me some of your photos,’ I said to Vickie.

  ‘Oh, Nanna, you shouldn’t have. They’re not good enough by miles,’ said Vickie.

  ‘I’ve got some great photography gear with me, Vickie,’ I told her. ‘I bought a 400-mm lens before I left and it makes a big difference, especially for nature photos. When I have some time I’ll show you.’

  Mum made everyone a cup of tea and brought out a tray of Anzacs. Nicole looked tired and stressed but was her normal warm and friendly self. After a while Mum said she needed to get started on lunch so I shut myself in Father’s old office and rang Christine to see if anything had come up I needed to deal with. She assured me that between her and Dasher Doyle everything was running pretty smoothly but gave me a couple of messages from people who’d called in my absence.

  When we finished going through the messages and talking through a few things I asked to speak to Dasher. The latter reiterated that apart from one speeding offence, Brewster was clear and there was no record of any Zane Reid.

  After putting my mobile away, I considered what Dasher had told me. I wasn’t surprised to find that neither Brewster nor Reid had any ‘form’ though there was a nagging suspicion in my mind that Reid might have a record in the US, so I’d be interested to know what Ballinger turned up about him. In the light of my suspicions about him and Brewster it was possible that the two of them had done some swindling in the jewellery business and things had got too hot for them.

  Towards the end of lunch Mum said, ‘Vickie, can you please take me down to the village? I need to pick up a few things for dinner now that Lachie’s here.’

  After they’d left, Nicole and I were quiet for a while, so I decided to raise all the dramas going on with Stuart.

  ‘How are things going for you, Nicole?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, Lachie, I don’t know where to begin. The long and short of it is that I’ve decided to leave Stuart. Things haven’t been going well for ages. Marriage to Stuart has never been a bed of roses but I decided a long time ago that I shou
ld stay with him for the girls’ sake. Now though, I’ve got to the point where the tension and arguments are outweighing the benefit to the kids of us staying together. A lot of our rows have been about him wanting me to have another baby because he’s desperate for a son to take over Kamilaroi.’

  I nodded and waited for her to continue.

  ‘Vickie had it in her head that she wanted to have a role in the stud side of things when she left ag college. She wanted to start showing Kamilaroi sheep and cattle again, which Stuart had talked about doing for years. But when she raised it with Stuart he made his usual disparaging remarks about the unsuitability of girls running farming operations. You know what he’s like. Even though Vickie and Stuart have never been as close as I’d have liked, Vickie loves so much about farming and she did brilliantly at ag college. Since she came home they’ve had one row after another.

  ‘The trouble between them came to a head when Vickie told him she’d been offered a job working on the breeding program on a big stud near Quirindi and that she intended to take it. Stuart was furious about her applying for it without his knowledge and said he wouldn’t hear of it. Vickie declared that she was going anyway since there was no work for her at Kamilaroi and she wanted to do something with her ag knowledge. Stuart slapped her face and said there was no way he would allow it. Vickie stormed out of the room, took the ute and drove in to Flora’s. Stuart went in and brought her back but she refuses to speak to him.

  ‘His attitude to Vickie’s farming ambitions was bad enough but the final straw for me was when I found out Stuart had been seeing another woman. She works for one of the agents in Gunnedah but she has a farm and breeds thoroughbreds. I tackled Stuart about it and we had a terrible row that ended in him hitting me,’ she said.

  ‘God help me,’ I breathed, truly ashamed to have a brother who’d hit a woman, thinking how Nicole had to be some kind of a saint to have stayed with Stuart as long as she had. ‘No one will blame you if you decide to leave Stuart,’ I said. ‘A person can put up with only so much. And there’s a limit to the idea of staying together for the children. But what will you do and where will you go?’ I asked.