by Joy Dettman
‘I’ll find that bloody case and I’ll burn your clothes. I’ll burn every stitch you own, you German-loving slut.’
‘Burn my wedding dress too while you’re about it. I’ll help you burn that one, then I’ll run naked to Chris – and it wouldn’t be the first time either. I used to swim the river to him, naked as a baby, and we’d make love on the sand. I love him. I love Chris Reichenberg, and I loathe and despise you. But I’ll always pity you a bit, like I’d pity any crippled dog.’
‘You shit-mouthed whore! I’ll kill you before I let you make a fool of me in front of this town. I’ll cut your bloody throat from ear to ear.’
‘Nicholas God Almighty Squire already made a fool out of you. I couldn’t improve on that, Dave.’
Lying on that stripped bed, near naked, that parasite swelling her from within – and she was still the better man.
She’d always be the better man.
keeping to the shade
Be it the power of suggestion or the river, it always seemed a few degrees cooler down by the dairy – maybe it was the green of those old willows trailing their fingers in the water, or the darker green of the mulberry trees, leaning far out over the river but not brave enough to get their feet wet.
Flat riding near the river too, easier on fifty year old legs. If Tom never saw that hill again, it would be too soon. He’d given up waiting for Morgan, jumping up for every car, every truck, even for Len Larkin’s motorbike.
The widow hadn’t bothered coming by, but Larkin had. He’d cleared up a few points too. Vern Lowe had been stony motherless broke last night, botting drinks and smokes, and Len Larkin was the one man who could state for a fact that any money the little louse had on him today hadn’t come from a win on the gee-gees. But better than that, much better than that, Larkin had given Tom a description of a big blond Pommy bloke with a handlebar moustache Vern Lowe had been botting smokes and drinks off last night. So the bugger that young Mike reckoned he’d seen pitch that handbag in the river was real, and Tom wanted him, and Reg Curtin might know where he could be found.
Just over the bridge on the left, opposite Squire’s property, was the Greens’ rambling old house perched close to the bank of the river. They took in boarders, ran a few dairy cows, had a thousand chooks running wild, plus a couple of dogs running wilder. Those mongrels thought the bridge belonged to them and attempted to convince anything on wheels of their ownership. Tom aimed his heel at one as it went for his back wheel while the other bugger darted out, trying to cut him off at the pass. They hadn’t sunk their teeth into anyone yet, but something ought to be done about them before they did, or folk would start riding across the bridge toting shotguns.
Reg Curtin’s place joined up with the Greens’. He didn’t own much land but he’d done well for himself. As Tom swung into his drive, he saw a lot of action amongst the trees. Curtin’s missus and daughters were out picking alongside the men.
‘Afternoon, all,’ he called, and everyone bar the pickers replied. Reg left his peaches and walked Tom to the shade of a modern house, grown in by fruit trees – no land was wasted on a front garden here. He offered his tobacco tin and papers and they rolled smokes, Reg’s was rolled and lit with him already blowing smoke before Tom had managed something remotely resembling a cigarette. He’d never got the hang of rolling his own. Some blokes could do it one handed, or at least Len Larkin could – had to, of course.
They leaned in the shade of two big water tanks filled with river water, the coolest place to lean, while Tom got to the point.
‘What I’ve got so far, Reg, is half a dozen pickers, tanked up and refusing to leave Dolan’s party until near dawn. They would have cut across Kennedy’s land to the bend – there’s a well-worn track there. Now, I know the Squire girl was at the railway station sometime after midnight, that she was probably carrying seventy-eight quid on her. As I’m seeing it at the moment, she could have realised she’d forgotten something and decided to walk home to get it. Instead, she’s run into those tanked-up pickers. I’ve got one of the curs locked up, and reason enough to believe he was carrying close on a third of that seventy-eight quid. They say he knocks around with a Pommy bloke –’
‘Mo Riley, a big good looking coot with a ginger moustache,’ Reg said. ‘He’s related to the Hendersons. Came out here asking about them a week back.’
‘The Hendersons’ names were mentioned. I’ll need to talk to them.’
Reg nodded towards his trees. ‘They’ve been picking since sunup. Good workers and decent blokes, both of them. I told Riley I’d give him work, but Merv came up to me later and told me straight that I didn’t want that mongrel anywhere near my girls.’
‘Is that so?’
‘As I say, those Hendersons are good blokes, both family men. Kennedy took on Mo Riley and his mates, but they let him down today. That poor chap was here around lunchtime, looking like death warmed up.’ Reg glanced at the sun, then at his trees. ‘Merv. Royce. Can we have a word with you?’ he called, and two big bruisers Tom knew by sight came wandering up, rolling smokes.
‘You were at the pub with Vern Lowe and Mo Riley last night,’ Tom said, eyeing the big buggers, their matching faces chiselled from the same red gum stump.
‘We were at the pub at the same time as ’em, yeah.’
‘Vern said you walked them back to the camp.’
‘We left when they cut off the grog.’ Only one doing the talking, the other lighting his smoke.
‘So, how many were down there when you left?’
‘Six or eight.’
‘Names?’
‘Mo and Lefty, his sidekick, a couple of O’Brien’s men, a few of your local boys.’
‘And Vern Lowe,’ Tom said. ‘What do you know about Vern and his mates?’
‘Not much. Lefty used to do a bit of boxing. You might have heard of him – Lefty Logan?’
‘Ah, be buggered to it,’ the other one said. ‘Mo Riley is on bail for something big enough to make him want to skip. His missus is my missus’s sister, and he left her in the lurch with five kids to feed and nothing to feed ’em on.’ He sucked on his smoke, looked at what was left of it, crushed the ember between finger and thumb, stuck the butt behind his ear and went back to picking peaches.
‘Just a minute –’
‘I wouldn’t go getting him started up on Riley. He hates that bastard’s guts,’ the other Henderson said, and he followed his brother.
Tom watched them walk to the trees. ‘Not blokes I’d like to tangle with.’
‘They’ll drink most under the table on a Saturday night, then pick all day Sunday. I trust them to pick beside my wife and girls.’
Five minutes later, Tom, cradling a brown paper bag full of peaches in his arm, and thus not equipped to fight off Green’s dogs, knocked on their owner’s door. He had a word or two to say about those dogs, made a few enquiries, which were enlightening, then continued on his way, the dogs chained up down the back and no longer bothering him.
He had intended calling on the Squires, until Reg offered the bag of peaches, but there was no real need to disturb those poor folk today. He’d face them tomorrow, in a car, with a shaved face and a clean shirt.
He called in to the dairy, sighted Willie Johnson down with the cows, but found Mr Croft in his little ice room, surrounded by ice, damn near sitting on a block of it. Tom eyed it, envied it, while the old bloke measured butter for him and poured cream into a jar.
‘I don’t suppose you could sell me a small block of ice, Mr Croft. I’ve got two Russell Street chaps staying with me tonight, and no ice to stop my butter from melting,’ Tom said.
He got a small block, and a wheat bag to tote it in, and a lecture from the old bloke on how, if word got around that he was selling ice at the dairy, he’d end up with a queue six deep at his door. Tom promised not to tell a soul, promised to return the cream jar clean, and the wheat bag too, first thing in the morning, and not to make a welter of asking to buy ice.
&nb
sp; As Mr Croft hobbled down to his cow yard, Tom hit the heat, pedalling those pedals, thinking of apricot jam and cream on fresh bread for dinner, thinking that the baker ought to be opening up his doors soon, thinking he might get a ride back to the city with Morgan when he returned, take Rosie down to that private hospital for a week or two. He could afford a week or two.
He put the ice in his ice chest, three peaches beside it, cream and butter down the bottom. Selecting the largest peach, he walked out to his lock-up, and to the little louse sweating in there.
‘Nice and comfortable, Vernon? Settled in for the night, have you? Want a couple of blankets?’
‘I want bloody water. I’m dyin’ of thirst, you bastard.’
‘You tell me where the other murdering bastards went to, and I’ll give you a jug full. Cold, straight off the ice. I just got myself a big block of ice and I’ve got a jug of water sitting on it. And peaches too. Ice cold. Are you partial to peaches?’ He bit into the peach, sucking noisily on the juice, Vern watching every drip.
‘You can’t lock a man up and not give him water. It’s not legal.’
‘True. And I’m willing to give it – very willing – when you tell me your mates’ whereabouts. Think of ice, Vernon. Think of an ice-cold peach. Or would you prefer me to come in there and belt the information out of you?’
‘It’s more than your job’s worth to touch me.’
‘I reckon, in about five minutes from now, you’re going to see how much my job’s worth. I’ll just finish my peach.’ Tom bit and made an even better show of sucking juice. ‘A beautiful peach, that one,’ he said. ‘Picked fresh off the tree not ten minutes back. It’s nice down by the river today – the only place to be on a day like this. I took a bit of a look around your camp, took a dip while I was down there, Vernon, had a bit of a wash. You ought to try it sometime – having a wash.’ He sucked on the peach seed, spat it at his prisoner, then took his baton from his belt and played music along the bars.
‘Want to know what I found while I was swimming around in that cool, clear water, bloody thieving, bloody murdering, bloody sweat-soaked, BO stinking Vernon?’
‘A pity you didn’t drown in it, you cow-eyed bastard. You lock a man up on a day like this and you got to give him water. It’s the law.’
‘Yeah, but this is the country and we don’t take much notice of the law. Any rate, we’re discussing a bloodsucking louse here, not a man. Fill it up and I’ll have more filth to clean up when I’m through with squashing it, won’t I?’ He fished in his pocket for his bunch of keys, jangling them. ‘I found me a handbag while I was swimming, Vernon, just down below the camp, floating innocently in that reed bed.’ Vern stepped back and Tom smiled. ‘And what a stupid bloody place for Mo to throw it. I thought even a Pommy would have had enough brains to know that a river is the first place a country copper is going to look.’
‘I don’t know who you’re talkin’ about,’ Vern said, stepping back again, looking down at the filthy toe protruding through his sock.
‘I’ve got myself a reliable eyewitness who saw Mo Riley toss that bag in.’ Tom mimed the action, swinging his baton overhead, creating good visual fiction. He didn’t have that handbag and wasn’t likely to get it either, but Vern didn’t know that. The foul-smelling little louse’s eyes darted from corner to corner like a rat with no way out, his tongue flicking in and out between his snake fangs, tasting danger.
‘A leather handbag holds air, you see. It’s not going to go to the bottom right away. And your mate goes and pitches it in the river – probably worth good money, that bag, but I dare say you had enough without it.’
‘I want to see a solicitor,’ he said.
‘No solicitors in this town.’ Tom wiped a sticky hand on the seat of his trousers then fitted a key to the lock. ‘You’ve got until I count to ten to come clean, then I’m coming in, bloody bail-jumping, lower than a snake’s backside Lowe. One, two, three…’ his baton doing the counting on the bars. ‘Four.’
‘We’re innocent of that thing in the city. We didn’t touch him, and we didn’t touch that tart neither.’
‘Four and a half. Five.’
‘There was a crowd of us walkin’ back when that bloke found her. Those Hendersons was there.’
‘Six. I just spoke to the Hendersons. They camp at Curtin’s place, and they say they left when the widow cut off the supply. They reckon you and Mo wanted more grog. That why you robbed her place last night?’
‘I want a solicitor.’
‘Judge Cochran and his family will be up here for the funeral on Tuesday, but I doubt he’d advise you, him being a friend of the dead girl’s family.’
Vern was looking sick. Maybe he did need water. He wasn’t getting any.
‘Seven. So, where are your bail-jumping mates now? I’ve got their descriptions out on the wires.’ Another bit of fiction but it sounded good. ‘Mo Riley, Pommy, six foot three, yellow hair, ginger handlebar moustache, Lefty Logan, ex-boxer.’ Still no reply. ‘So, your mates left you to take the heat, eh? Some bloody mates you’ve picked up with.’
‘I don’t know nothin’ about nothin’. Get me some water.’
‘Eight. I’ve been drinking all day, Vernon. It’s amazing how much water a man goes through in a day, but you dehydrate fast in this town. A little runt like you, now, give him twelve hours and he’d be dried out like a worm in the sun. And all those blowflies waiting for you to fall over so they can plant their eggs in your filthy ears, chew their way into your brain.’
‘You poofta-mouthed bastard –’
‘Poofta mouth or not, it isn’t dry, and yours is. Come on. I’ll guarantee you’ll remember where your mates went off to sooner or later. It’s just a matter of time, a bit of my sweat, a bit of your blood, your last couple of teeth maybe, but mainly a matter of time. Nine. Nine and a half. Ten. Time’s up, Vernon. I’ll just go over what I’ve got. I know that Dave Kennedy had seventy-eight quid saved. I know by the contents of your stinking shoe that you, Mo and Lefty split that money three ways – after you robbed, ravished, then murdered that girl – or was it murdered, ravished, then robbed her? Which way was it, bloody Vernon?’
‘I told you we didn’t touch that little tart.’ He was panting, doing it hard.
‘She gave the bag up easy, did she?’
‘I’m saying no more without a solicitor.’
‘What I’m thinking is, with my reliable eyewitness, we can prove that it was Mo Riley who pitched the bag into the river. Was he the one who killed her?’ The key turned in the lock. ‘So, what time did they get away this morning?’
‘Macy and Joe might have killed her. It wasn’t us. They camp at O’Brien’s.’
‘Sure it wasn’t Lefty? They say he’s a bit punch-drunk.’
‘I want to see a solicitor.’
‘I can get you a priest. He’s in town, comforting the bereaved parents. He’ll do you as much good as a solicitor, and cost you less. He’ll walk with you right to the trapdoor, you know, and keep on reading his psalms as the trapdoor opens and –’ slam of the baton against the open door ‘– straight down to hell you go to fry, old Nick standing there, his red-hot pitchfork waiting.’
‘It won’t be much bloody hotter than in here, will it, you bastard?’
‘Not much. It seems to get hotter too, once the sun goes down. I don’t know why. All that heat coming out of the metal, I suppose.’
‘I didn’t touch that tart. May God strike me dead if I tell a lie but none of us put one finger on that tart and I swear that on my old mother’s grave. We was headin’ across to Kennedy’s to start pickin’ when we saw the bloke on his bike find her. When he rode off, we walked up to have a look at what he’d found – like anybody would have. And that’s no word of a lie.’
‘So, you saw her handbag lying there and you robbed the dead? That’s what you’re telling me, eh?’
‘We seen that there was nothin’ we could do for her.’
‘There were three of you. Y
ou could have carried her into town, dead or not.’
‘Yeah? With our bloody records? Talk bloody sense now.’
‘Where are they? Holed up somewhere, waiting to jump the train when she comes through tonight?’
‘They took off at dawn,’ Vern said, his tongue flicking. ‘They got some tucker from Red’s place before daylight and took off and that’s all I know.’ Vern sat down on his metal bunk, maybe exhausted by telling the truth – or maybe not. ‘You’d give a mongrel dog water, you bastard.’
‘True, I would.’
Tom gave him water and two bruised peaches, a box of matches and a handful of fags. Nothing to burn in that cell, no mattress – just a lot of hot metal. Designed for a larger town, a wilder town than Molliston, that lock-up looked bare with one little runt perched on one bunk, swinging his feet and sucking on a peach.
Those other mongrels could still have been in town. A city Pommy and his punchy sidekick would know enough not to venture far from water on a day like this. Walking upstream would get them nowhere fast – and their chance of making it through Walker’s land without catching consumption or a dose of saltpetre in the bum wasn’t good. If they’d walked downstream, they’d have had to pass through the back of the town, through Croft’s land – a busy place, that dairy, in the mornings. They’d be carrying their bedrolls. Someone would have seen them and known they weren’t taking a short cut to work. Had they made it over Bridge Road and kept following the river bank, it did a lot of twisting and turning before it got to Willama. If they had water and took off at dawn, they’d have been better off heading south on Bridge Road. Twenty miles out that dirt track cut back in beside the railway line, then followed it through the Soldier Settlement farms and back to the Melbourne road.
Tom, who still considered himself a city man, knew that city men liked city things, and a coot in a tight situation would want to stick close to a railway line. Of course they could still have been in town, holed up near the bottom crossing. The night train took on, and unloaded, a lot of non-paying passengers as it went over that crossing near Kennedy’s, where it had to slow to allow wandering stock to clear the tracks.
