Shore Leave

by David Whish-Wilson

Cassidy got out of the car and scanned the scene. ‘Get in the car, Mr Bernier. I’ve got some questions I want to run by you, back at the station.’

  ‘Is he under arrest?’ Webb asked.

  ‘No, he isn’t.’ Cassidy took out a piece of waxy paper, passed it to Webb. ‘Got this fax first thing this morning. It’s from the lab that tested Bernier’s seed, left in the Seaview Hotel room. Mr Bernier’s blood type is A-negative, like the swabs taken from our murder victims …’

  ‘… but he’s a non-secretor,’ Webb finished. ‘It can’t have been him.’

  Webb turned to Bernier, who was looking at them like they were stupid. ‘Please go with the detective here. Tell the full story to the best of your recollection. When the detective has finished, I’ll arrange for you to be picked up. Taken back to the Vinson. You can brief me there.’

  Webb turned to Cassidy. ‘Please make sure that Midshipman Bernier is fed on the way. He’s been mistreated.’

  Cassidy frogmarched the skinhead over to the car, put him in the back seat, motioned for Bernier to take the front. Cassidy stood beside the wheel and spoke into the radio handpiece, called in a forensics unit and two more homicide detectives, told them not to trample the scene and to wait for his return. Cassidy ended the call and began to climb inside the car, thought better of it and stood again, looked Swann in the eye. ‘You haven’t seen Detective Sergeant Gooch, have you, Swann? I’ve been told that he hasn’t shown for work. That he isn’t at his home, either. Car’s missing.’

  Cassidy had waited until precisely that moment, including staging climbing inside the car, to catch Swann off-guard. Cassidy’s owl eyes were steady and unblinking. Swann met them, shook his head. ‘He was tailing me, as you know. I lost the tail when I was with you, haven’t seen him since. Gooch is a bagman. Maybe he ran off with the bag.’

  Cassidy held his stare, then lifted his chin, a goodbye.

  The walkie-talkie crackled. ‘Suspects just arrived head of street, northern end, proceeding south in white Ford van, registration 7EH 133.’

  ‘Roger that,’ came the reply. The two officers dressed as road workers began to use the jackhammer, following the spray-painted line, eyes down. Swann and Webb sat low in their seats, watched the van pass and drive onto the footpath directly in front of the restaurant. The command vehicle and the officers stationed either side maintained radio silence as Ralph Cord and his brother went to the back of the van, opened the swing doors. Ralph Cord picked up a heavy canvas bag and slung it over his shoulder. His brother reached in and drew out another man, whose hands were cuffed. Webb flinched beside Swann.

  ‘That’s Midshipman Devon Smith.’ Swann nodded toward the walkie-talkie. Webb picked it up and relayed the message that the cuffed man was the American citizen named Devon Smith, not a member of Cord’s party.

  There was no response from the command vehicle until the radio crackled. ‘Have visual on rear of the van. No other occupants. Repeat. No other occupants.’

  The Cord brothers went inside, Ralph’s brother prodding Smith through the doors, a pistol at his back. Through the tinted glass Swann could see shadowy shapes patting them down. The radio crackled again. Webb’s liaison had placed the walkie-talkie next to the monitoring receiver of the bugs inside. Swann recognised Page’s voice, strong, commanding. ‘Where’s the money?’

  ‘What money?’

  ‘The fifteen K that’s been promised to me, for setting this up.’

  ‘Fair play, Mr Page. Worth a try, mate.’

  Swann was glad that all of the officers were stood down. None had begun creeping toward the restaurant. The front door of the restaurant opened and Ralph Cord returned to the passenger door of the van, leaned under the seat and took out a small paper bag, returned inside, was patted down again.

  ‘They’re all there,’ one of the Cord brothers said. ‘Six Yank rifles. More trouble than they’re worth. Same goes for this fuckhead. Your responsibility now.’

  ‘Go. Go. Go.’

  From the video store, the TRG team began to exit, running to the restaurant door. Three smashes with a battering ram and they were inside, out of Swann’s vision but the shouting loud and insistent. No shots fired in the seconds that followed, meaning all had complied and were on the floor.

  Webb punched Swann on the arm, held out a closed fist. ‘Bump fists with me, Sheriff.’

  Swann and Webb waited until Page and his men, the Cord brothers and Devon Smith were led away, placed in an armoured police vehicle, its windows painted black. Swann reached onto the seat and picked up the brick. Webb nodded.

  Swann dialled the Daily News, asked to be put through to Maddie, a cadet journalist. He couldn’t remember her second name but she was quickly on the line. Swann introduced himself, wondered if she’d be interested in an exclusive story. He checked the dash clock. It was ten past midday, plenty of time for her to file before the two o’clock deadline. He ran her through it, the arrest at the Fremantle home and the raid on Jared Page’s restaurant. Gave her Cassidy’s name for confirmation, said to say that Swann was the source before hanging up.

  ‘That was nice of you,’ said Webb.

  Swann nodded, but it wasn’t entirely true. In this town, you were never sure. Swann didn’t know if Page was a registered informer, didn’t want him squealing out of it. Putting him on the front page of the evening paper would make that impossible. Swann needed Page locked up for a very long time – long enough for his business empire to crumble, for his problems with Swann to be made insignificant.

  The command vehicle was getting ready to depart. Webb picked up his briefcase and brick. ‘Better go with them. See what charges will be laid against Midshipman Smith. Hope they throw the book.’

  Swann watched Webb approach the Main Roads van, knock on the rear doors, disappear inside.

  67.

  Tony Pascoe had moved into Louise’s old room but they ate lunch on the back deck, where no prying eyes could see. The mood was sombre because of Francine McGregor’s funeral later in the afternoon. Swann’s black suit was airing in the sunshine beneath the old tuart tree. He was going to meet Louise’s friend Maddie before the cremation. Maddie wanted to cover the service as a bookend for her articles on the murders and the arrest of the Cord brothers. She also wanted to thank Swann. She didn’t say why specifically, although Louise had confided that because of her articles, Maddie had been promoted from cadet reporter to a staff position.

  After the arrests, Swann had withdrawn from the picture. Maddie still had Cassidy as her primary source, however, and she made sure to give Cassidy all the credit for the arrests. The younger skinhead that Swann and Webb detained at the Solomon Street house had flipped in the interrogation room. He wanted protection because of something that he’d done, and this had been granted, once it became clear that he knew everything about the Cords’ plan to kidnap Bernier and set him up for the two murders.

  The barbecue smoked and sizzled. All of Marion and Swann’s daughters were there, and their two grandchildren, Jock and Neve. That morning Swann had cashed his money order from the US Navy, payment for his services, and he’d splashed out. It was a generous amount, and Swann paid Blake and Lee, then bought crayfish from Salvatore’s cousin over the back fence, and prawns and a whole red emperor which he baked in foil on the barbecue. Tony Pascoe was a vegetarian, so couldn’t eat any of it, but Marion and his three daughters would ensure that it wasn’t wasted.

  Paul Tremain had visited half an hour ago, leaving Swann a felt bag heavy with gold ore taken directly from his mine site. Swann had been paid in kind before, but never in gold, which still had crusts of quartz and rich red dirt over the ore. Tremain had heard of Jared Page’s arrest, and assumed that Swann was involved. Swann wasn’t glad to see him, not even after he’d given him the gold, but Tremain understood. He’d taken Swann’s advice, he said, and had brought in an unnamed senior public servant from the Department of Mines as a silent partner of the Lightning Resources mine, to run protection and ensure that he g
ot a straight road. Swann warned Tremain that once the mine was producing, he needed to buy the building that his office was housed in, and to never sell it, so that Gooch’s grave wouldn’t be disturbed. He then told Tremain that he never wanted to see him again. He didn’t stay to watch him leave.

  Tony Pascoe sat alongside his grand-daughters and drank his lemonade, nodding at their conversation, the dog asleep at his feet. The afternoon had cooled and the breeze in the branches of the old tuart clacked and swished. It was hard to say without X-ray confirmation, but Marion had examined Pascoe and felt that he was physically stable, as long as he didn’t exert himself. His heart was strong and his blood pressure within the range. He could go anytime, but then again he might have months. Marion offered to take leave to look after Pascoe, but Swann refused. If she told him what to do, how to administer the morphine and manage the pain, he would nurse the old man, wash him and clean up after him, until the end.

  Swann didn’t know how well Pascoe would fit in with his daughters, but the signs were good, so far. Pascoe liked to tell a story, for one thing, and he appeared to be a good listener. Swann watched him make big eyes at a story young Jock was telling him about a sea lion that they’d watched that morning, sunning itself on the local beach.

  It was Jock’s mother, Sarah, who asked Pascoe to tell them about his early years. He took a deep breath, put on a brave face, tried his best to smile – then began to talk. He didn’t gloss over it and he didn’t romanticise it either. He was born during the Great Depression that made both his mother and father unemployed. Pascoe’s father had gone out to the gold mines and died in a shaft collapse. Pascoe’s mother had also died young of tuberculosis. During his teens, Pascoe had been raised in South Fremantle by his paternal grandfather, by then a very old man, who’d come to the colony as a convict in 1868. He was transported from Scotland for theft and did his seven years at Fremantle Gaol, working on the roads and reclaiming land for the port. He was a good man, Pascoe said, but damaged by his time as a convict, and Pascoe had grown up wild and unsupervised. He also inherited his grandfather’s resentment and hatred of authority. Pascoe had made some bad choices. He loved his grandfather but had never learned the significance of family.

  Pascoe looked at Swann when he said this. Louise put her hand on Pascoe’s shoulder. Each of Swann’s daughters knew the score. They’d had an unusual upbringing. Housing a wanted man didn’t faze them. What made their first meeting with Pascoe difficult was the knowledge that he was dying.

  It was only a look from Pascoe, but Swann felt it more deeply than he expected. It was a new feeling, and one that was going to take some getting used to – for both of them, he could see that. As though Pascoe had read his mind, he looked at Swann again, and this time held the look.

  ‘You’re a lucky man, Frank,’ Pascoe said. ‘You’ve got each other. You also got the best of your mother. I can see her in these kids too.’

  Swann and Pascoe hadn’t had that conversation. How Pascoe and his mother had met, why he’d abandoned them. If Pascoe was true to his word that he’d learned to be straight with others, then that was a conversation for another time. Neither had they talked about the coming months, what would happen when it ended. Pascoe had only said, ‘Go and speak to Des Ryan, down there on Harbour Street. He knows what to do. Give him some of the gold I took off Tremain, tell him to give some of it to his neighbours. He’ll know what I mean. Leave it up to Des. He knows my spot. Long as I’m buried outside those walls, I’ll be free.’

  Swann brought over the food, placed it on the table, caught the end of Pascoe’s conversation with Marion.

  ‘I like your garden,’ Pascoe said. ‘Anyone using that planter box at the back fence?’

  Marion shook her head. ‘It doesn’t get much light. We planted vegies there for years, until the tuart grew.’

  ‘I’ve got some ideas,’ Pascoe said. ‘Fresh parsley. I can eat buckets of the stuff. I also want to bury some things.’

  ‘Like buried treasure?’ Jock chimed in.

  Pascoe grinned. ‘From the mouths of babes, eh? But yeah, like buried treasure.’

  Swann thought about the weight of gold in the Gladstone bag, tucked beneath the old man’s bed. It made sense to bury it. It’d be a good nest egg, going forward.

  ‘Where did you get the treasure?’ Jock asked.

  Pascoe shrugged, winked. ‘From a goose who laid a golden egg.’

  Swann shook his head at the bad joke. He sat beside Marion, who put her hand on his knee. Swann draped his arm around her and leaned in, raised his glass of beer. ‘To family,’ he said. ‘Old and new.’

  ‘To family. Old and new.’

  ‘And to stopping and smelling the roses,’ added Swann, to groans from his daughters.

  He shrugged defensively. ‘I mean it. Since I quit smoking, I can smell Salvatore’s roses.’

  Tony Pascoe raised his glass, touched with Swann. ‘Doesn’t make it any better, but yeah, here’s to smelling the roses.’

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  This book is dedicated to Mark Constable for the decades of sharing stories over campfires and pints of Guinness; for his jokes, harmonica-tunes and songs, and for his fact-checking eye cast over each of my novels.

  Thanks always to my publisher and editor Georgia Richter, and to all the great team at Fremantle Press. Thanks to Artsource for the continued use of my writing room. Much love to Bella and my three children – Max, Fairlie and Luka. Fairlie and Luka, I hope you’re happy knowing that when I read certain passages of Shore Leave aloud, Mya will prick up her kelpie ears in recognition.

  ALSO AVAILABLE

  It’s the early 1980s: the heady days of excess, dirty secrets and personal favours. Former detective Frank Swann is still in disgrace, working as a low-rent PI. But when he’s offered a security job by the premier’s fixer, it soon becomes clear that someone is bugging the premier’s phone – and it may cost Swann more than his job to find out why.

  ‘[Perth] is indeed one of the key characters in the novel, a remote wild-west mirage with more money than sense …’ Australian Book Review

  ‘Whish-Wilson has again delivered a fast-paced, entertaining and smarter than average crime novel.’ The Weekend Australian

  ‘In the Frank Swann series, David Whish-Wilson has done for Perth what Peter Temple did for Melbourne with Jack Irish.’ Westerly Magazine

  ‘As the plot unfolds, Whish-Wilson’s text pulses from the pages at an escalating rate, building tension and suspense as the story hurtles towards its surprising resolution.’ Farm Weekly

  FROM FREMANTLEPRESS.COM.AU

  FROM FREMANTLE PRESS

  Western Australia, 1988. After betraying the Knights bikie gang, 17-year-old Lee Southern flees to the city. Working as a rogue tow truck driver, he is captured by right-wing extremists whose combination of seduction and blackmail keeps him on the wrong side of the law and under their control. As the true nature of what drives his captors unfolds, Lee becomes an unwilling participant in a breathtakingly ambitious plotand a cold-blooded crime.

  ‘But for all of Whish-Wilson’s skill with impactful action and white-knuckle suspense, True West ultimately reveals itself as a complex morality tale about the tenacious spread of prejudice.’ Books + Publishing

  ‘Whish-Wilson’s Western Australia is alive, its heart beating, its outback a swirl of dust and history, roads like scars, the scent of its plants as strong as the ocean’s salty brine. Lee is a hell of a character … This is compelling, thrilling, and still feels like it could be played out today in the white nationalist fringes of Australian politics.’ Readings

  AND ALL GOOD BOOKSTORES

  First published 2020 by

  FREMANTLE PRESS

  Fremantle Press Inc. trading as Fremantle Press

  25 Quarry Street, Fremantle WA 6160

  (PO Box 158, North Fremantl
e WA 6159)

  www.fremantlepress.com.au

  Copyright © David Whish-Wilson, 2020

  The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

  This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission.

  Enquiries should be made to the publisher.

  Cover image: istockphoto.com/au

  ISBN 9781925815986 (paperback)

  ISBN 9781925815993 (ebook)

  Fremantle Press is supported by the State Government through the Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries.

  Publication of this title was assisted by the Commonwealth Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.