Pride’s Harvest. Jon Cleary

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СКАЧАТЬ being used as fork-lift substitutes, raising up a long thick pole. Clements slowed the car.

      ‘You gunna bring the kids to the circus tomorrow?’

      ‘I’ll try. Depends whether we’re working or not.’ A day with Lisa and the kids would be a nice break. ‘I might even watch the Cup and put a dollar or two on something.’

      ‘Don’t get rash. That’s money you’re throwing around.’

      They drove on into town, which now seemed full of cars and utility trucks and four-wheel-drive wagons. The sleepy air of the town had disappeared; Collamundra looked as if it might be getting ready to get drunk. Some drunks were already evident, but Malone noticed from the police car, slowed by the traffic, that they were mostly Aborigines. He wondered if Cup weekend was a cause for celebration for them or whether this was how they marked every weekend.

      One of the drunks stepped off the footpath, walked unsteadily to the middle of the road, then stopped, facing the traffic. Clements slammed on the brakes. The Aborigine was middle-aged, thin but for a bloated belly; he wore a tweed cap, with his hair sticking out on either side and curling up like the horns on a Viking’s helmet. He grinned foolishly at the two strangers in the Commodore, raising his hand and giving them a slow wave. The traffic had banked up behind the police car and horns were being sounded in temper. The Aborigine leaned sideways, slowly, without moving his feet, and peered past the Commodore to the cars behind. He gave their drivers the same slow wave, still grinning foolishly.

      Jesus Christ,’ said Clements, ‘is it any wonder people have no time for the stupid bastards?’

      Malone was smiling back at the Aborigine. ‘This might be his only happy moment in the whole week.’

      Clements turned his head. ‘Don’t be a bloody bleeding heart. Down in Redfern you’d have been out of the car in a flash and grabbed him if he’d done that to us.’

      Malone opened the door of the car, got out, the chorus of car horns still hooting behind him, and walked up to the Aborigine. He took the man by the arm.

      ‘Come on, Jack. You’re going to get sun-struck standing out here in the open.’

      The man giggled. ‘Sun-struck?’

      ‘Sun cancers, too. Your complexion’s all wrong. Come on, back in the shade.’

      The man didn’t struggle. With Malone still holding him by the elbow, he walked unsteadily back to the footpath and stood under a shop awning. A small crowd had gathered, all whites, men and women; they were silent, their faces full of a hostile curiosity. He’s a cop, why doesn’t he arrest the drunken Abo?

      Malone looked over their heads, searching for another Aborigine, saw two young men standing in a doorway. He raised his hand and beckoned them over. They hesitated, looked at each other, then came towards him, the crowd opening up to let them through.

      ‘Take him home,’ Malone told the two young Aborigines. Then to the drunk: ‘Go with them, Jack. Otherwise I’ll have to lock you up.’

      ‘You’re a copper?’ The man’s look of surprise was comical. He looked around at the crowd, shaking his head in wonder. ‘Wuddia know! He’s a copper!’

      He grabbed Malone’s hand, giggled, shook his head again, then let the two young men lead him away. As Malone stepped off the kerb to get back into the Commodore, which Clements had pulled out of the way of the traffic, a thickset farmer, a redneck if Malone had ever seen one, said, ‘You’re wasting your sympathy, mate. They’re just a bloody nuisance when they’re like that, to ’emselves and everyone else.’

      ‘Maybe you’re right,’ said Malone. ‘But you don’t have to play at being a cop, do you?’

      As he got into the car beside Clements a man’s voice said from the back of the crowd, ‘Why don’t you go back where you belong?’

      ‘Drive on,’ Malone said quietly and Clements pulled the car out into the traffic again.

      They said nothing more; then Clements was pulling the Commodore into the police station yard. As soon as they got out of the car they were aware of the tension amongst the half a dozen uniformed men in the yard. At first Malone thought they were waiting to say something to him and Clements; he stiffened, seeking some sort of answer to a question he hadn’t yet heard. Then, as they reached the steps leading up to the back door of the rear annexe, Baldock, hatless, his face tight and red as if he were holding his breath, came out through the doorway. He stopped abruptly on the top step and looked down at the two Sydney men.

      ‘Billy Koowarra’s just hung himself.’

THREE

      1

      ‘Looks like he did it, don’t you reckon?’ said Dircks.

      He and Malone were at lunch at the reserved table by the corner window. The dining-room was crowded, mostly with men but also with a few women. Narelle Potter had refurbished the big room, but its restored old-time charm fought a losing battle against the rough, loud bonhomie of the male diners. The women guests tried hard, but they were just whispers in the chorus of shouts, laughter and loud talk. Malone, as sometimes before, wondered how people could manage to eat and yet still make such a hubbub.

      He caught what Dircks had just said in the moment before it was lost in the noise. ‘What?’

      ‘He’s the obvious suspect. I’m not saying shut the book on Sagawa’s murder, but it might be better if we just let it die quietly.’

      You’re the one who’s obvious. ‘Why do you think Koowarra’s the one who did it?’

      ‘I didn’t say that. I’m just suggesting you take advantage of what’s happened.’ Dircks dipped his handkerchief in his glass of water and sponged a spot of gravy off the lapel of his expensive suit. Everything he wore was expensive, but he didn’t look comfortable in it, as if his wife or perhaps a daughter had bought his wardrobe and each morning he just put on what was laid out for him. He didn’t look comfortable at the moment and Malone wondered if Chess Hardstaff had laid out instructions for him. ‘His suicide is tantamount to a confession. Use it. We know he’d been sacked, there was bad feeling between him and Sagawa.’

      ‘How do you know that?’

      ‘I know.’ Dircks finished his wet-cleaning, picked up his knife and fork again. Whatever he felt about the two deaths, the murder and the suicide, his appetite had not been affected. He began to chew on a mouthful of steak that would have satisfied a crocodile.

      ‘No court would accept a case built on that. There was no note of confession, he didn’t say a word to any other prisoner or any officer.’ Malone cut into his rack of lamb. The menu was written in English, no fancy French handles to the dishes, and the chef, Malone guessed, probably cooked with the Australian flag hanging over his stove. The dessert list, he had noted, contained such local exotica as bread-and-butter pudding, sherry trifle and lamington roll; somehow the national dish, passion-fruit pavlova, had missed out. ‘Frankly, Mr Dircks, I don’t think Koowarra killed Sagawa and I’m not going to waste my time following that line.’

      Dircks picked up his napkin to wipe his mouth, СКАЧАТЬ