The Broken Shore (32 page)

‘The lawyer. Addison. Place’s going on the market some time. She wants me to clean up when the time comes.’

She sucked on her stub, ground it out among the five or six already in the abalone shell on the table. She offered Cashin the packet. He shook his head.

‘Coffee?’ she said. ‘Tea? I should’ve asked. Caught me without my face too. Not used to being here at this time of the morning.’

He’d had to wait minutes, didn’t knock again after he heard movements inside.

‘No thanks. Ever heard of someone called Arthur Pollard?’

‘Pollard? No.’

The sagging foam chair made his back hurt. Cashin sat up straight, tried to extend his spine. He took out the doctored, sanitised photograph of Pollard. ‘Know this man?’

She looked at it, held it away. ‘Something familiar…don’t know. Local?’

‘No. Tell me about Percy Crake.’

‘Well, he came to Bourgoyne’s after the fire at the camp. Little moustache. His sister arrived, a bitch. Face like an axe, moustache too. Bigger than Crake’s. Called herself Mrs Lowell. Christ knows how she got Mr Lowell. She used to come behind me with a tissue looking for dust.’

‘What did Crake do?’

‘Took over, marched around like a dork. He used to make us stand outside his office for our wages, keep us waiting like he was busy inside. Then he’d open the door and he’d say: Now then, line up in alphabetical order.’

The voice she imitated wasn’t loud and commanding. It was thin and grating. ‘Five people. In alphabetical order, I ask you? Pommy shit. Fucking scoutmaster.’

Be Prepared.

Cashin saw the stiff and cracked little belt, the round rusted buckle. ‘That was in 1983,’ he said.

‘Yeah. I started, full-time in 1978. Mrs B was there with the kids. She was nice, gave him about twenty years. Real tragedy that, falling down the stairs.’

‘How did they take it, the kids?’

‘The boy never said a word. Erica followed Mr B around like he was a pop star. She was in love with him. Girls can be like that.’

An intake of smoke, a blowing, a tapping into the abalone shell. ‘They used to have parties. Garden parties, cocktail parties, dinner parties, all the Cromarty money, people from Melbourne. For the autumn races, there’d be people staying. I got help. There was a cook and a waiter come from Melbourne.’

Carol sucked her cheeks hollow. ‘Anyway, old times. History. What’s this about?’

Cashin shrugged. ‘Just curious.’

‘Thought the black kids did it?’

‘What do you think?’

‘No surprise to me. Daunt’s a fucking curse on this town.’

‘You must know a lot about the Bourgoynes.’

‘Not that much. Cleaning up behind people, that’s the job. Washing, ironing. Twenty hours a week the last ten years or so. That’s
it.’ More smoking. ‘Head down, bum up around there, mate,’ she said. ‘Unless you’re Bruce Starkey.’

‘He got special treatment?’

‘Well, in the old days, Crake was always checking. He caught you havin a smoko, he’d dock your pay quarter of an hour. Can you believe that? Bloody Starkey, he never went near him, didn’t have to line up for his pay, the big prick.’

‘How’d Bourgoyne and Crake get on?’

‘Pretty good. Only time I ever heard Crake laugh was when Mr B was in his office. Crake helped him with the pots, the kiln. They used to do it at weekends. Burn it all weekend.’

‘You saw that?’

‘No. Mrs Lowell told me. Burn through the night. Starkey used to be chainsawing and chopping for a week before.’

‘How often was this?’

‘Jeez, it’s been a long time. I suppose twice a year. Yeah.’

‘Those pots in the gallery room. Nine pots. That’s all he kept?’

‘He used to smash em up. Starkey took the bits to the tip. Half a ute load at a time.’

Cashin looked at the barren green view, thought about how nice it would be if this had never begun, if he had never received the call that morning.

‘Sure you don’t want coffee? I’m going…’

‘No thanks,’ said Cashin. ‘Erica says she knows almost nothing about her step-father’s affairs. What do you think?’

Carol frowned, aged ten years. ‘Well, wouldn’t surprise me. I can count on one hand the times I’ve seen her there since she was about fourteen. Fell out of love with her step-dad.’

She came with him to the vehicle, hugging herself against the cold. The dogs liked the look of her and she had no fear of them, scratched their chins.

‘Twin buggers,’ she said. ‘What kind’s this?’

‘Poodles.’

‘Nah. Poodles are sooky litle things. Rough buggers, these.’

‘Neglected,’ said Cashin. ‘Short of haircuts and brushing.’

‘Bit like me.’ She was fondling big dog ears, not looking at him.

‘You married?’

‘Not anymore.’

‘Kids?’

He hesitated. ‘No.’

‘Kids are good, it’s bloody jobs that’s the problem. My ex went to Darwin, don’t blame him. Fisherman. I couldn’t hack it, never saw him, he just slept here.’

‘Thanks for the help,’ said Cashin.

‘Any time. Come again. Have a beer.’

‘That’d be good. Starkey get the boot too?’

‘Dunno. Place’ll need some keeping up if it’s on the market.’

Cashin was in the vehicle when he thought to ask. ‘The Companions camp. Know anything about it?’

Carol shook her head. ‘Not much. Starkey used to work there before the fire.’

THE CROMARTY
Herald
’s editorial office was in a ugly yellow-brick 1950s building on the edge of the business area.

Cashin went through glass doors into an area with a long counter staffed by two young women. A glass wall cut them off from a big office, half a dozen desks, five women and a man, all with heads down. He had to wait for three people to pay bills, one to lodge a classified advertisement.

‘I’d like to see back copies of the paper, please,’ he said.

‘Through that door,’ the woman said. ‘There’s about six months.’

‘For 1983.’

‘Jeez. Don’t think you can do that.’ She wasn’t interested, looking at the person behind him.

‘Is there a library?’

‘Library?’

‘Where you keep your files.’

Puzzled brow. ‘Better ask editorial,’ she said. ‘In there.’

Another reception room, an older woman behind a desk. He asked the same question. This time, he said police. She spoke on the phone. In seconds, a door opened and a man in his fifties, bald, florid, big belly, came in. Cashin introduced himself, showed the badge.

‘Alec Clarke,’ the man said. ‘Assistant editor. Come through.’

It was a big room, six or seven people at desks, looking at computers, three men doing the same at a cluttered table in the centre.
It was not unlike a squad room. Clarke led Cashin to the first office in a row of four cubicles. They sat.

‘How can I help?’

Cashin told him.

‘That far back? Looking for something in particular?’

‘A fire. At the Moral Companions camp near Port.’

‘Right, yes. Big news that, the boys. Very sad. What’s the interest now?’

‘Idle curiosity.’

Clarke laughed, held up his hands, palms out. ‘Message received. I’ll have a check, back in a minute.’

He went out, turned right. Cashin looked at the workers. They were all young women except for the three at the middle table, seedy older men, pale, moulting and flaking. The ginger one who appeared to be in charge was methodically fossicking in his nostrils, from time to time studying the finds. A painfully thin young woman came in and went to the prospector, spoke in a respectful manner. He pulled a face, waved his right hand dismissively. She nodded and she went to a seat at the back of the room. Cashin saw her shoulders slump, her chin go down.

‘Sorry to be so long, detective,’ said Clarke. He sat behind the desk.

‘Always a pleasure to watch a well-oiled machine,’ said Cashin.

A tight smile. ‘Now there’s a problem here,’ said Clarke. ‘We went modern in ′84, put everything on microfiche. You’re probably too young to remember microfiche.’

‘I know microfiche.’

‘Yes. Well, we had a fire in ′86, a cigarette someone dropped in a bin, but we lost the fiche for about ten years from 1976.’

‘What about the actual papers?’

‘Destroyed in ′84, unfortunately. No concern for heritage then. In retrospect, we should never…’

‘The State Library would have them?’

‘Worth a try. Certainly.’

Outside, Cashin walked to the vehicle in a cold morning, looked up at a sky deep as heaven, pale as memory. The dogs beat each other with their tails at the sight of him.

THE STATE Library did not hold the Cromarty
Herald.
Cashin put down the phone and thought about Corey Pascoe and Bourgoyne’s watch. Did it matter now?

He closed his eyes, put his head back. The boys were dead because of a Bourgoyne watch. The whole terrible business turned on the watch.

How did Corey come to have a watch belonging to Bourgoyne? Chris Pascoe said something that day on the pier, it hadn’t registered as important.
He wasn’t a bad kid, Corey. Could’ve played AFL footy. Just full of shit, thought he saw a fuckin career in dope. You a mate of Hopgood and that lot?

A career in dope. Was he talking about Corey smoking dope? That wouldn’t be remarkable on the Daunt, it wouldn’t be remarkable anywhere in the country. Dope was like beer in the 1960s. People then didn’t say the beer kept them from playing professional footy.

No, Pascoe didn’t mean smoking. He meant growing, dealing.

He watched the dogs patrolling the backyard, complaining to each other of sensory deprivation. They didn’t like the place, they wanted to be somewhere with Rebb. What kind of memory did dogs have? Did they miss Rebb?

The Piggots were drug people. Billy Piggot was dealing to schoolkids. Debbie Doogue had been a customer.

Kendall behind him. ‘Am I allowed to say I’d like you back in that
chair permanently ASAbloodyP? I am so bored by these boy wonders I could face a charge any time now.’

‘I’m back soon,’ said Cashin. ‘Never heard of anyone missing me.’

‘Staging for compliments, that’s not allowed,’ she said. ‘What I appreciate is that you don’t go on about reality crap on television and how many slow curls for the maximum upper-body benefit.’

‘Actually, I’ve been thinking about curls. This kid came in about the hairdresser girlfriend took his ute to Queensland. He says the Piggots are getting rich. Been busted to your knowledge, the Pigs?’

‘In my time, no.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Don’t know. It’s Cromarty’s business.’

‘Yes, but someone has to tell Cromarty.’

‘I don’t think they need telling. I think they know.’

‘This come up before I arrived? When Sadler was in charge?’

‘We had complaints.’ Kendall looked away. ‘Sadler said he’d talk to Cromarty. Anyway, work to do.’

‘Just hold a sec, Ken. The day of the march, I asked you about Billy Piggot, you said something about a Ray Piggot. What was it again?’

‘Ripped five hundred bucks off a rep staying at the Wavecrest. He said he gave Ray a lift from outside Cromarty, invited him to his room for a beer. Later the money was gone. Just two thirsty blokes, you understand, one’s about fifty, the other one looks like he’s fourteen.’

‘He had Ray’s full name?’

‘Yes. Sadler rang Cromarty. Hopgood and that Steggles arrived. Parked in the back. Ray Piggot was in the car. Must’ve picked him up on the way. They left him there, talked to the rep in the interview room. He left, they left. Never heard any more.’

‘Piggot not charged?’

‘Nope. He got off a charge in Melbourne too. Stole a stereo and a laptop from a bloke he met in the park. Streetkid then.’

‘What does all this say to you?’

Kendall smiled her small sad, comprehending smile, eyes down. ‘I’m just happy to have my job,’ she said. ‘When I was physically stuffed, people didn’t push me away, get me out of sight, pension me
off. They were family to me. You’d know about that. Not so?’

She left. Cashin put his head back, heard the messages from his tired places. The morning at the court, Greg Law had given him a message about Hopgood. Head-kicking, grass-growing Gaby Trevena wasn’t the most dangerous person in town, he said. Had Law been delivering a threat from Hopgood? Or had he been saying he wasn’t a Hopgood man?

You a mate of Hopgood and that lot?

Hopgood and Lloyd. And Steggles, presumably.

Steggles vomited that night. In the pouring rain, face down, his gun pointed at the sky, a tube of vomit sprang from his mouth. The hamburger he had been eating at the briefing, the greasy yellow chips with sauce-red tips, they exited his body after he shot the boy.

Didn’t have the stomach for it, Steggie.

Cashin rang Helen Castleman.

‘I want to talk to that Pascoe again,’ he said.

‘Your bedside manner needs some work. Has anyone told you that?’

‘I’ll talk to him in your office. You can be there.’

‘This is official, is it? An official interview?’

‘No. Just a chat.’

‘Well, I don’t represent Pascoe, so I have no standing when it comes to chats. Also I have no desire to assist the police in their chatting work.’

‘I’ll start again. I’m trying to clear the boys. Clear your client.’

‘My late client.’

She was silent. Cashin waited.

‘I’ll get back to you,’ she said. ‘Where are you?’

Cashin went outside, walked around the block in the wind, only a few people in the main street, moving between vehicles and shops. Leon’s place was empty.

‘Police,’ said Cashin loudly. ‘This business open?’

‘Open to bloody suggestions,’ said Leon, coming out of the kitchen. ‘Open to offers of any kind. Limited menu today. Soup, that’s all I’m offering, a proper minestrone made with a ham bone.’

‘To take away?’

‘Seven-fifty eaten on premises. For removal, I’ll accept four-fifty.
Three-fifty because you’re the police.’

‘You can keep the bone.’

‘Three-fifty. I’ll chuck in a slice of bread. Proper bread. Buttered. With butter.’

‘Two slices.’

‘Stood over. I’m being stood over. What kind of music do you like?’