Authors: Peter Temple
‘No rent, eating your food.’
‘Yeah, well, let’s say fifteen.’
‘If you like.’
‘I’ll need your tax file number.’
Rebb smiled. ‘Do me a favour. Use Bern’s number. Know that by heart, wouldn’t you, your cousin, all the transacting you do? Paying the tax on it all.’
Hopelessly compromised, thought Cashin. Just as guilty as any woman with two kids caught shoplifting.
He parked two blocks from the bank. He could have parked behind the police station but something said that wasn’t a good idea. He took money out of the machine and paid Rebb.
‘I’ll be half an hour,’ he said. ‘Enough for you?’
‘Plenty.’
He walked down wet streets to the station. Hopgood was in, writing in a file, a neat stack to his left awaiting his attention.
‘Paperless office,’ said Cashin from the door.
Hopgood looked up, expressionless eyes. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘I’d like to know who ordered the spotlight on Donny’s house.’
‘That’s the Coulter bitch’s story, lies, they all fucking lie. It’s a way of life. Just a routine patrol.’
‘I thought the Daunt was Indian territory? What happened to the Blackhawk Down stuff?’
Bright spots on Hopgood’s cheekbones. ‘Yeah, well, time to show the fucking flag in the pigsty. Anyway, where do you get off? I don’t answer to you. Worry about your own fucking pisspot station.’
Cashin felt the heat in his own face, the urge to hit Hopgood in the middle of his face, to break nose and lips, to see the look he’d seen in Derry Callahan’s eyes.
‘I’d like to see the Bourgoyne stuff,’ he said.
‘Why? It’s over.’
‘I don’t think it’s over.’
Hopgood tapped a nostril with a finger. He had fat fingers. ‘The watch? How does that feel?’
‘I’d like to have a look anyway.’
‘I’m busy here. Take it up with the station commander when he gets back from leave.’
Their eyes were locked. ‘I’ll do that,’ Cashin said. ‘There’s something we haven’t discussed.’
‘Yeah?’
‘That dud Falcon. You knew it couldn’t keep up, didn’t you?’
‘Didn’t know you couldn’t drive, mate. Didn’t know you were a gutless fucking wonder.’
‘And the calls. You heard them.’
‘Is that right? There’s nothing on tape. You two boongs making up
stories now? Like Donny’s fucking mother? You related? All fucking related, aren’t you? How’s that happen, you reckon? All in the one bed fucking in the dark when they’ve cut the power cause you spent all the money on grog?’
Cashin’s vision was blurred. He wanted to kill.
‘Let me tell you something else, you fucking smartarse,’ said Hopgood. ‘You think you can shack up with a swaggie out there and nobody knows? You can let your arsefucker punch out innocent citizens and you look the other way? Is that a thrill for you? You like that kind of thing? Come in your panties, do you?’
Cashin turned and walked. A uniform cop was in the door. The man moved away quickly.
CASHIN WENT down to the esplanade and stood at the wall, the salt wind in his face. There were whitecaps across the bay, a fishing boat was coming in, cresting the grey swells, sinking into the troughs. He did his deep breathing, trying to take control of his nervous system, feeling his heartbeat slow.
After ten minutes, he went back, the only people on foot a group of kids coming down the hill in a rolling maul. He turned right halfway up, went the way he’d walked with Helen Castleman from the court, climbed the steps to her office. The receptionist was a teenager, too much makeup, looking at her nails.
He asked. She spoke on the telephone.
‘Down the passage,’ she said, a big smile, lots of gum. ‘At the end.’
The door was open, her desk was to the right. Helen was waiting for him, looking up, unsmiling. He stood in the doorway.
‘Two things,’ he said. ‘In order of importance.’
‘Yes?’
‘Donny,’ he said. ‘I’ve raised the harassment. They deny it. I’ll take it as far as I can.’
‘Donny’s dead,’ she said. ‘He shouldn’t be. He was a boy who wasn’t very bright and who was very scared.’
‘We didn’t want that. We wanted a trial.’
‘We? Is that you and Hopgood? You were fishing. You had nothing.’
‘The watch.’
‘Being with someone trying to sell a watch is evidence of nothing. Even having the watch means nothing.’
‘I’ll move on to the fence,’ said Cashin.
‘You’ve taken more than a metre from my property,’ she said. ‘Have your own survey done if you don’t accept mine.’
‘That’s not what bothers you. You thought the property went to the creek.’
‘Quite another matter. What I want you to do, Detective Cashin, is to take down the fence you so hastily…’
‘I’ll sell you the strip to the creek.’
He had not planned to say this.
Helen’s head went back. ‘Is that what this is about? Are you a friend of the agent?’
Cashin felt the flush. ‘Offer withdrawn,’ he said. ‘Goodbye.’
He was in the doorway when she said, ‘Joe, don’t go. Please.’
He turned, conscious of the blood in his cheeks, did not want to meet her eyes.
She had a hand up. ‘I’m sorry. I retract that. And my outburst on the evening, I apologise for that too. Unlawyerly behaviour.’
The disdain, then the surrender. He didn’t know what to do.
‘Accept?’ she said.
‘Okay. Yeah.’
‘Good. Sit down, Joe. Let’s start again, we know each other in a way, don’t we?’
Cashin sat.
‘I want to ask you something about Donny.’
‘Yes?’
‘There’s something, it came up, it bothers me.’
‘Yes?’
‘The pursuit, roadblock, whatever it was, that was because of a watch someone tried to sell in Sydney. Is that right?’
Cashin was going to say yes when Bobby Walshe came into his mind. This was about politics, the three crucified black boys. Bobby wasn’t going to let it rest, there was mileage left, miles and miles. She wanted to use him.
‘There’s the coroner to come,’ he said. ‘How’s Bobby Walshe?’
Helen Castleman bit her lip, looked away, he admired her profile.
‘This’s not about politics, Joe,’ she said. ‘It’s about the boys, the families. The whole Daunt. It’s about justice.’
He said nothing, he could not trust himself.
‘Do cops think about things like justice, Joe? Truth? Or is it like your football team, it can do no wrong and winning is everything?’
‘Cops think much like lawyers,’ said Cashin. ‘Only they don’t get rich and people try to kill them. What’s the point here?’
‘Donny’s mother says that Corey Pascoe’s sister told her mother Corey had a watch, an expensive-looking watch.’
‘When was that?’
‘About a year ago.’
‘Well, who knows what Corey had?’ Cashin heard the roughness in his voice. ‘Watches and what else?’
‘Will you do anything about this?’
‘It’s not in my hands.’
She said nothing, unblinking. He wanted to look away but he couldn’t.
‘So you’re not interested?’
Cashin was going to repeat himself but Hopgood came into his mind. ‘If it makes you happy, I’ll talk to the sister,’ he said.
‘I can get her to come here. You can use the spare office.’
‘Not here, no.’ That was not a good idea.
‘She’s scared of cops. I wonder why?’
There had been a Pascoe in his class at primary school. ‘Ask them if they know Bern Doogue,’ he said. ‘Tell them the cop is Bern’s cousin.’
Cashin bought the Cromarty
Herald
at the newsagent. He didn’t look at it until the lights, waiting to cross.
MOUTH RESORT GO-AHEAD
Council approves $350m plan
He read as he walked. Smooth and tanned Adrian Fyfe was going to get his development, subject to an enviromental impact assessment. Nothing about access, about buying the Companions camp from the Bourgoyne estate.
CASHIN SAW them as he rounded the old wool store—two big men and a woman near the end of the jetty. He parked, got out, put his hands in the pockets of his bluey and walked into a wind that smelled of salt and fish, with hints of burnt diesel.
The jetty planks were old and deeply furrowed, the gaps between them wide enough to lose a fishing knife to the sea, see it flash as it hit the water. Only three other people were out in the weather, a man and a small boy sitting side by side, arms touching, fishing with handlines, and an old man layered with clothing, holding a rod over the railing. His beanie was pulled down to his eyebrows, a red nose poking out of grey stubble.
The men watched him coming, the woman standing between them had her eyes down. Closer, Cashin could see that she was a tall girl, fifteen or sixteen, snub nose, bad skin.
‘Joe Cashin,’ he said when he reached them. He didn’t offer to shake hands.
‘Chris Pascoe,’ said the man closest, the bigger of the two. He had a broken nose. ‘This’s Susie. Don’t remember you from the school.’
‘Yeah, well, if you remember Bern Doogue, I was there.’
‘Tough little shit that Bern. All the Doogues. Seen him around, not so little now, he don’t know me. Gone white, I reckon.’
The other man stared into the distance, chin up, like a figurehead.
He had dreadlocks pushed back, a trimmed beard and a gold ring in the visible earlobe.
‘The lawyer says there’s something I should know,’ said Cashin.
‘Tell him, Suse,’ said Pascoe to the girl.
Susie blinked rapidly, didn’t look at Cashin. ‘Corey had a watch,’ she said. ‘Before he went to Sydney.’
‘What kind of watch?’
‘Leather strap, it had all these little clock things.’ She made tiny circles on her wrist. ‘Expensive.’
‘Did he say where he’d got it?’
‘Didn’t know I’d seen it. I was just lookin for my CDs, he pinched my CDs all the time.’
‘Why didn’t you ask him?
She looked at Cashin, eyebrows up, big brown eyes. ‘So he’d know I looked in his room? Shit, not that fuckin brave.’
‘Watch your language,’ said her father.
‘If I showed you a picture of the watch, would you recognise it?’ said Cashin.
Susie shrugged inside the anorak, it barely moved. ‘Dunno.’
‘You had a good look at it?’
‘Yeah.’
Cashin thought about the band of pale skin on Bourgoyne’s wrist. ‘How come you’re not sure you’d recognise it?’
‘Dunno. I might.’
‘The name of the watch?’ he said. ‘Notice that?’
‘Yeah.’
Cashin looked at the men. It gained him nothing. The dreadlocked one was rolling a cigarette.
‘You remember the name?’
‘Yeah. Bretling. Something like that.’
‘Can you spell that?’
‘What’s this spell shit?’ said Chris Pascoe. ‘She seen the watch.’
‘Can you spell it?’
She hesitated. ‘Dunno. Like B-R-E-T-L-I-N-G.’
If they’d schooled her, she would have got it right. Unless they’d schooled her not to.
‘When was this?’ said Cashin.
‘Long time ago. A year, I spose.’
‘Tell me something,’ said Cashin. ‘Why’d you only talk about the watch now?’
‘Told me mum the day after.’
‘After what?’
‘After you shot Corey and Luke.’
He absorbed that. ‘What did she say?’
The girl looked, not at her father but at the dreadlocked man. He opened his mouth and the wind took smoke from it. Cashin couldn’t read his eyes.
‘She said don’t talk about it.’
‘Why?’
‘Dunno. That’s what she said.’
‘Got to go,’ said Chris Pascoe. ‘So she’s told you, right? Can’t say you don’t know now, right?’
‘No,’ said Cashin. ‘Can’t say that. Didn’t catch your friend’s name.’
‘Stevo,’ said Pascoe. ‘He’s Stevo. That right, Stevo?’
Stevo sucked on his cigarette, his cheeks hollowed. He flicked the stub, the wind floated it across the jetty. A gull swooped and took it. Stevo’s face came alive. ‘See that? Fuckin bird smokes.’
‘Thanks for your time,’ said Cashin. ‘Got a number I can ring you on?’
The men looked at each other. Stevo shrugged.
‘Give you my mobile,’ said Pascoe.
He found the mobile in his jacket and read out the number written on the cover.
Cashin wrote it in his book. ‘You’ll hear from me or the lawyer,’ he said. ‘Thank you, Susie.’
‘He wasn’t a bad kid, Corey,’ said Pascoe. ‘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?’
‘No.’
‘But you’ll stick with the bastards, won’t you? All in together.’
‘I do my job. I don’t stick with anyone.’
Walking down the uneven planks, looking at the fishermen, at the
shifting sea, Cashin felt the eyes on him. At the wool store, he turned his head.
The men hadn’t moved. They were watching him, backs against the rail. Susie was looking down at the sodden planks.
‘IT’S DIFFICULT,’ said Dove, his voice even hoarser on the telephone. ‘I’m not a free agent here.’
‘This thing’s a worry to me,’ said Cashin.
‘Yeah, well, you have worries and then you have other worries.’
‘Like what?’
‘I told you about the freezer. The election’s coming on. You go on worrying and then you’re in charge at Bringalbert North. And your mate Villani can’t save you.’
‘Where’s Bringalbert?’
‘Exactly. I have no fucking idea.’
‘The difference is that then we thought the boys had done it and you thought someone’d gone soft-cock on Donny, he was going to walk.’
‘Yeah, well. Then. Talked to Villani?’
‘He told me to get on with my holiday,’ said Cashin.
‘That’ll be coming from on high. The local pols don’t want to turn the sexy white hotel staff of Cromarty against them and the federal government doesn’t want to give Bobby Walshe any more oxygen than he’s getting now.’
It was late morning, a fire going. Cashin was on the floor in the Z-formation, trying to hollow his back, lower legs on an unstable kitchen chair. Silent rain on the roof, drops ghosting down the big window. No working on Tommy Cashin’s ruin today.
‘If this thing is left,’ he said, ‘it dies. The inquest will say very unfortunate set of events, no one to blame, it’ll pass into history, never be picked up again. Everyone’s dead. And then the kids and the families and the whole Daunt have it stuck on them. They murdered Charles Bourgoyne, a local saint. A stain forever.’