Jon Cleary - Pride’s Harvest

‘Jeff will look after you,’ said Narvo; and Malone, his ear, as always, sensitive to a new environment, thought that Narvo spoke with relief. ‘I have to go over to Cawndilla first thing in the morning to see the District Super. I’ll tell him you’re here. Will you want to see him?’

No cop in his right mind ever wanted to see a District Superintendent, especially one who might resent strangers on his turf. ‘I don’t think so.’ Out of the corner of his eye he saw Baldock grin and nod appreciatively. ‘Just give him my respects and tell him we won’t kick up too much dust.’

‘He’ll be glad to hear that. We all will, won’t we, Jeff?’ Baldock seemed to hesitate before he nodded; but Narvo was already looking back at Malone. ‘We’ve booked you into the Mail Coach Hotel. We were lucky to get you a room. You don’t mind sharing?’

‘So long as we don’t have to share the bed. Does it have a bathroom or do we have to queue up down the end of the hall?’

He knew there were still some country hotel owners who thought they were spoiling their guests if they gave them too many amenities. If the explorers Burke and Wills, starving to death on their last ill-fated expedition, had chanced to stop at one of those hotels they would not have been fed, not if they had collapsed into the dining-room after eight p.m.

The Collamundra cops looked as if local pride had been hurt. Baldock said, ‘It has a bathroom. Narelle Potter, the owner, likes to stay on side with us. It can get a bit rowdy down there sometimes. You know what country pubs can be like, especially when everyone comes in from out of town.’

‘I’d like a shower before I go out to see my family.’ Malone enjoyed the look of surprise on both men’s faces, especially Narvo’s. ‘My wife and kids are staying out at Sundown, the Carmody property – or rather, they’re staying with Mrs Waring, Carmody’s daughter. My wife and her are old friends, they worked together down in Sydney.’

He wondered why he was telling them so much about a relationship that was no concern of theirs. But he had noticed how both Narvo’s and Baldock’s faces had closed up, as if they were abruptly suspicious of him.

‘Well,’ said Baldock, ‘you’ll get all the dirt on the district out there. Old Sean Carmody’s not one of your back-fence gossips, but he can never forget he was a journo, a big-time foreign correspondent.’

‘He’s probably got the Sagawa murder already solved,’ said Narvo. ‘Enjoy your stay, Scobie. Russ.’ But he said it without conviction, as if he knew there would be no enjoyment for any of them.

Malone and Clements went out with Baldock and up to the detectives’ room on the first floor of the rear building. It was an office in which there had been an attempt at neatness, probably under Narvo’s orders, but it had failed; this was a room which would have more visitors than Narvo’s, many of them obstreperous or even still murderous, and neatness had bent under the onslaughts. There was one other detective in the room, a short, slight dark man in a suit that looked a size too large for him.

Baldock introduced him. ‘Wally Mungle. He was the first one out to the crime scene. A pretty gory sight, he tells me.’

‘Gruesome.’

Now that they were standing opposite each other, Malone saw that Mungle was an Aborigine, not a full-blood but with the strain showing clearly in him. He had a beautiful smile that made him look younger than he was, but his eyes were as sad as those of a battered old man.

He held out a file. ‘Maybe you’d like to see the running sheet.’

‘We don’t run to computers here in the detectives’ room,’ said Baldock. ‘We’re the poor cousins in this set-up. Both computers are downstairs with the uniformed guys and the civilian help.’

Again Malone had a feeling of something in the atmosphere, like an invisible shifting current. He took the file from Mungle and flipped through it: so far it was as meagre as the report on a stolen bicycle:

Kenji Sagawa, born Kobe, Japan, June 18, 1946. Came to Collamundra August 1989 as general manager South Cloud Cotton Limited. Family: wife and two children, resident in Osaka, Japan.

Body discovered approximately 8.15 a.m. Tuesday April 12, by Barry Liss, worker in South Cloud cotton gin. First thought was accidental death due to body being trapped in cotton module travelling into the module feeder. Later inspection by Dr M. Nothling, government medical officer, established that death was due to gunshot wound. (Medical report attached.)

‘That’s all?’

‘The bullet has been extracted,’ Mungle said. ‘Ballistics had a man sent up from Sydney last night. He left again this morning. The bullet was a Twenty-two.’

‘What about the cartridge?’

‘No sign of it.’

Malone frowned at that; then glanced at the file again. ‘This is pretty skimpy.’

Mungle said almost shyly, ‘It’s my first homicide, Inspector. I’ve only been in plain-clothes a month.’

Malone decided it wasn’t his place to teach Mungle how to be a detective. He nodded, said he would see Mungle again, and he and Clements went downstairs and out to their car. Baldock followed them.

‘Wally will do better. He’s the first Abo cop we’ve had in this town. He’s done bloody well to make detective.’

Malone decided on the blunt approach; he was tired and wanted the picture laid out for him. ‘Tell me, Jeff, do you coves resent Russ and me being called in?’

‘It was me who called for you. And call me Curly.’ He took off his hat and ran his hand over his bald head. ‘I get uptight when people call me Baldy Baldock. My mates call me Curly. Does that answer your question?’

Malone grinned and relaxed; he was surprised that he had begun to feel uptight himself. Several uniformed men, in their shirt-sleeves, two of them with chamois washcloths in their hands, had come to the doors of the garages again and stood in front of the cars and patrol wagons they had been cleaning. There was a stiffness about all of them that made them look like figures in an old photograph. Through a high barred back window of the two-storeyed rear building there came the sound of a slurred voice singing a country-and-western song.

‘One of the Abos in the cells,’ said Baldock. ‘Today’s dole day. They start drinking the plonk as soon as the pubs and the liquor shop open and we’ve usually got to lock up two or three of ’em by mid-afternoon. We let ’em sober up, then send ’em home.’

‘How do they feel about Constable Mungle?’

‘He’s an in-between, poor bugger. But it’s a start. Come on, I’ll take you down and introduce you to Narelle Potter. She’s a good sort, you’ll like her. She’s a widow, lost her husband about five years ago in a shooting accident. Let’s go in your car. You may need me to make sure you get a parking place.’

‘How do you do that out here in the bush?’ said Clements, the city expert.

‘Same as you guys down in Sydney, I guess. I give some poor bugger a ticket, tell him to move his vehicle, then I take his place. What do you call it down in the city?’

‘Emergency privilege. Makes us very popular.’

But miraculously, just like in every movie Malone had seen, there was a vacant space at the kerb in front of the Mail Coach Hotel. Clements squeezed the Commodore in between two dust-caked utility trucks. Some drinkers on the pavement, spilling out from the pub, looked at them curiously as the three policemen got out of their car.

‘It’s the most popular pub in town,’ said Baldock. ‘Especially with the races and the Cup ball coming up this weekend. There may be a brawl or two late in the evening, but just ignore it. We do, unless Narelle calls us in.’