Jon Cleary - Pride’s Harvest

The hotel stood on a corner, a two-storeyed structure that fronted about a hundred and twenty feet to both the main street and the side street. It was the sort of building that heritage devotees, even strict teetotallers, would fight to preserve. The upper balconies had balustrades of yellow iron lace; the windows had green wooden shutters; the building itself, including the roof, was painted a light brown. It was one of the most imposing structures in town, a temple to drinking. The congregation inside sounded less than religious, filled with piss rather than piety.

Baldock led Malone and Clements in through a side-door, past a sign that said ‘Guests’ Entrance’, a class distinction of earlier times. They were in a narrow hallway next to the main bar, whence came a bedlam of male voices, the Foster’s Choir. In the hallway the preservation equalled that on the outside: dark polished panelling halfway up the cream walls, a polished cedar balustrade on a flight of red-carpeted stairs leading to the upper floor. Mrs Potter, it seemed, was a proud housekeeper.

Baldock returned with her from the main bar. She was a tall, full-figured woman in her mid-thirties with dark hair that looked as if it had just come out from under a hairdresser’s blower, an attractive face that appeared as if it had become better-looking as she had grown older and more sure of herself. She had an automatic smile, a tool of trade that Malone knew from experience not all Auscralian innkeepers had learned to use. Narelle Potter, he guessed, could look after herself, even in a pub brawl.

‘Gentlemen – ’’ She had to adjust her voice from its strident first note; the gentlemen she usually addressed were those in her bars, all of them deaf to anything dulcet. ‘Happy to have you. We’ll try and make you comfortable and welcome.’

She looked first at Malone, then at Clements, who gave her a big smile and turned on some of his King’s Cross charm. It worked well with the girls on the beat in that area; but evidently Narelle Potter, too, liked it. She gave him a big smile in return.

Baldock left them, saying he would meet them tomorrow out at the cotton farm, and Mrs Potter took them up to their room. It was big and comfortable, but strictly hotel functional; the heritage spirit ran dry at the door. There were three prints on the walls: one of a Hans Heysen painting of eucalypts, the other two of racehorses standing with pricked ears and a haughty look as if the stewards had just accused them of being doped.

‘You like the horses?’ said Clements, whose betting luck was legendary, at least to Malone.

‘My late husband loved them, he had a string of them. I still have two, just as a hobby. One of them is running in the Cup.’ She looked at Malone. ‘You’re here about the murder out at the cotton gin?’

Malone had put his valise on the bed and was about to open it; but the abrupt switch in the conversation made him turn round. If Mrs Potter’s tone wasn’t strident again, it had certainly got a little tight.

‘That’s right. Did you know Mr Sagawa?’

‘Oh yes. Yes, he was often in here at the hotel. He was unlike most Japs, he went out of his way to mix with people. He tried too hard.’ The tightness was still there.

‘In what way?’

‘Oh, various ways.’ She was turning down the yellow chenille bedspreads.

‘Do you get many Japanese out here?’

“Well, no-o. But I’ve heard what they’re like, they like to keep to themselves. The other Jap out at the farm, the young one, we never see him in here.’

‘There’s another one?’

‘He’s the trainee manager or something. I don’t know his name. He’s only been here a little while.’

‘So you wouldn’t know how he got on with Mr Sagawa?’

She paused, bent over the bed, and looked up at him. He noticed, close up, that she was either older than he had first thought or the years had worked hard on her. ‘How would I know?’

He ignored that. ‘Did Mr Sagawa have any friends here in town?’

‘I don’t really know.’ She straightened up, turned away from him; he had the feeling that her rounded hip was bumping him off, like a footballer’s would. ‘He tried to be friendly, like I said, but I don’t know that he was actually friends with anyone.’

‘Is there any anti-Japanese feeling in the town?’

She didn’t answer that at once, but went into the bathroom, came out, said, ‘Just checking the girl left towels for you. Will you be in for dinner?’

Now wasn’t the time to push her, Malone thought. Questioning a suspect or a reluctant witness is a form of seduction; he was better than most at it, though in his sexual seduction days his approach had been along the national lines of a bull let loose in a cow-stall.

‘Sergeant Clements will be. I’m going out of town for dinner.’

‘Oh, you know someone around here?’ Her curiosity was so open, she stoked herself on what she knew of what went on in the district. She’ll be useful, Malone thought, even as he was irritated by her sticky-beaking.

‘No, I just have an introduction to someone. I’d better have my shower.’

He took off his tie, began to unbutton his shirt and she took the hint. She gave Clements another big smile, swung her hips as if breaking through a tackle, and went out, closing the door after her.

Clements’s bed creaked as he sank his bulk on to it. ‘I don’t think I’m gunna enjoy this.’

Malone nodded as he stripped down to his shorts. He still carried little excess weight, but his muscles had softened since the days when he had been playing cricket at top level. So far, though, he didn’t creak, like an old man or Clements’s bed, when he moved. He tried not to think about ageing.

‘Get on the phone to Sydney while I have my shower, find out if they’re missing us.’

When he came out of the bathroom five minutes later Clements was just putting down the phone. ‘Another quiet day. Where have all the killers gone?’

‘Maybe they’ve come bush.’

‘Christ, I hope not.’

It was almost dark when Malone got out to Sundown. The property lay fifteen kilometres west of town, 20,000 acres on the edge of the plains that stretched away in the gathering gloom to the dead heart of the continent. On his rare excursions inland he always became conscious of the vast loneliness of Australia, particularly at night. There was a frightening emptiness to it; he knew the land was full of spirits for the Aborigines, but not for him. There was a pointlessness to it all, as if God had created it and then run out of ideas what to do next. Malone was intelligent enough, however, to admit that his lack of understanding was probably due to his being so steeped in the city. There were spirits there , the civilized ones, some of them darker than even the Aborigines knew, but he had learned to cope with them.

He took note of the blunt sign, ‘Shut the gate!’, got back into the car and drove along the winding track, over several cattle grids, and through the grey gums, now turning black no matter what colour they had been during the day. He came out to the open paddocks where he could see the lights of the main homestead in the distance. His headlamps picked out small groups of sheep standing like grey rocks off to one side; once he stamped on the brakes as a kangaroo leapt across in front of him. Then he came to a second gate leading into what he would later be told was the home paddock. Finally he was on a gravel driveway that led up in a big curve to the low sprawling house surrounded by lawns and backed to the west by a line of trees.

Lisa was waiting for him at the three steps that led up to the wide veranda. ‘Did you bring your laundry?’

‘We-ell, yes. There’s some in the boot -’