He slammed his tumbler down on the table so that the glass top cracked. ‘Shit! They don’t have to believe it. It just has to get around.’ He looked at me and grinned. ‘The word is I’m violent.’
I nodded.
‘I also got kicked out of the police force for corruption. See what I mean? People see Vic Bruce turning a blind eye to everything. Why would I be any different?’
‘I get it. But, mate, you live here. You must know everyone for miles around. You must have some idea who’d be behind it.’
He shook his head. ‘Too many to name. Tod Van Keppel? He’s the head of Western Holdings and chairman of the big producers’ committee. They’re trying to buy up the little men. There’s Shirl’s family and friends. Plus I’ve had run-ins with various people over the years. It’s part of country life.’
‘Have you talked to the copper?’
‘He’s useless. Just serving out his time. Have another drink. I’ll put something in the microwave. Steak and kidney pie do you?’
‘Sure.’
He went to the kitchen and I poured myself another scotch and added some of the ice cubes and water. Jacko was still moving with the same vigour he’d always displayed but he was looking old and tired. There was a lot of grey in his hair and the lines on his face were at least partly from worry and tension.
I was swilling the drink around when Kevin came stumping in through the back door. I raised my glass. ‘Your dad was going to offer you a drink.’
He sneered at me, picked up the bottle, uncapped it and took a long swig.
‘Tell him thanks,’ he said and went out the way he’d come in.
I had to wonder about Kevin.
Jacko came back with two heaped plates, a bottle of tomato sauce and some cutlery. He looked at the uncapped whisky bottle.
‘Kevin?’
I nodded.
‘Dunno what I’m going to do with that boy if I can’t get this bank idea up. He was fine when he worked in the bank. Gone to the dogs since. Dig in, Cliff.’
The massive hotel sandwich had taken the edge off my appetite but I ate as much as I could so as not to offend. Jacko drank his soda water and I made the whisky and water last through the food. It was pretty tasteless and needed the tomato sauce. Jacko ate even less than me and looking at him I realised that he’d lost weight. He was about the same height as me, 184 centimetres, and had fought as a middleweight in his late teens. He’d go welter now, easily.
‘Coffee?’ Jacko said.
‘Maybe in a bit. What d’you want me to do, Jacko?’
‘What you do for a living. Investigate. You can have a look at the sabotaged machinery and photos of the dead stock. I can show you the notes and I’ve got recordings of the phone calls. You can talk to the people I’ve mentioned and see if anything occurs to you. Sort of sniff around.’
‘I can do that, I suppose. But this’s foreign territory to me. I’m not sure that I can come up with anything. Just suppose I do suss out who’s responsible. What then?’
Jacko rubbed the grey bristles on his lean jaw. ‘I’d feel like shooting him, but I suppose I’d try to sort out his objection, get him onside. It’s so obvious that a community bank’s what’s needed here.’
‘Wouldn’t be obvious to the big boys, would it?’
‘It could be if it’s managed right. We could live and let live. It works in other parts of the country.’
‘What if it’s someone who’s not against the idea but just hates your guts? Would you step aside and let someone else head the thing up?’
‘I hadn’t thought of that, but I guess I would. It’s the idea that matters, not me.’
It was the sort of answer I’d have expected. He hadn’t changed from the straight-as-a-die character he’d always been. ‘You’d better fill me in on your financial situation.’
‘I’m going to pay you.’
‘I don’t mean that! I mean what sort of pressure are you under money-wise-mortgage and all that? How much time’ve you got? How badly has this… campaign damaged your business?’
‘Sorry, mate. Shouldn’t have jumped in like that. I haven’t got a mortgage. Uncle Joe owned the place outright. I’ve borrowed from time to time for equipment and stock but nothing much. When the bloody bank said it was going to close I cleared my overdraft. I’d be buggered if I was going to deal with a bank in Sydney’ He leaned forward.
‘That’s the whole point. Those central office blokes don’t know anything about what it’s like out here. You get good years and bad. People help each other, at least they used to. That’s the sort of… commodity those bean counters can’t understand.’
It occurred to me that Jacko’s sound financial position might be a cause of envy and have triggered the problem. I asked him about his employees.
‘Only three, plus Kevin, who’s pretty well useless these days. Old Harry Thompson’s been here since Uncle Joe’s time. He can still do a day’s work. Then there’s Syd Parry and Lucas Milner. I suppose you’d call Lucas the head man. Aboriginal. Best man with stock for miles around.’
Maybe a race issue as well, I thought. There were plenty of possibilities, too many, but I agreed to do whatever I could to help.
Jacko thanked me, made a pot of coffee and I spiked mine with some scotch. I was weary and was pretty sure I’d sleep well but a nightcap never hurts. We were winding it up when there was a grinding crash outside.
The food and drink had slowed me down and Jacko beat me to the door, switching on a light as he went through. The area in front of the house was floodlit. Kevin had smashed the ute into a gum tree and was sitting slumped in the driver’s seat.
Jacko ran out, opened the door and reached for him.
‘Don’t touch me, you bastard,’ Kevin yelled. ‘Leave me alone, you fucker.’ He scrambled out, lost his balance and had to lean on the hood of the car. There was a gash on his forehead spilling blood down his face and onto his shirt. He tried to swing a punch at Jacko but missed by a mile and sagged back.
‘Kev, son, I just want to help you. I…’
‘Help me? You can help me by selling this excuse for a farm and getting us out of here. I hate this place. I hate you…’
His shoulders jerked and he burst into tears. Jacko moved towards him again but Kevin fended him off and staggered away in the direction of the washhouse. He stumbled but managed to stay more or less upright. Jacko looked helplessly after him and then turned his attention to the ute. I joined him and together we tugged at the crumpled radiator and mudguard.
‘No harm done,’ Jacko muttered. ‘I’m more worried about him.’
‘I’ll have a look at him.’
Kevin had stripped off his shirt, wet it under a tap and was wiping blood from his face. The cut was seeping now more than running and didn’t look too deep. He was still very drunk and having trouble remaining upright.
‘You all right, Kevin?’
‘Fuck off.’
I took him by the shoulders and sat him down hard on the edge of the bath. His cigarettes were in his shirt pocket and his lighter was on the floor. I got one out, stuck it in his mouth and lit it.
‘Calm down,’ I said. ‘You’re not the first kid to get some bad breaks.’
‘The fuck would you know?’
‘Where’d you get the booze? I thought you said you didn’t have any.’
He squinted through the smoke. ‘None of your fuckin’ business.’
‘You’re right. If I was you I’d have a shower and drink a gallon of water. And you’ll still feel like shit in the morning.’
I left him there and went into the house. Jacko was standing in the sunroom with the whisky bottle in his hand. He shook his head and capped it. ‘Wouldn’t help, would it?’
‘Probably not.’
‘That’s another thing those arseholes don’t know about-the effect all this shit has on families. I know what you’re thinking, Cliff. But it couldn’t be Kevin.’
I examined the threatening notes which had been placed near Jacko’s front gate. They were word processed and accurate as to spelling and grammar, but it doesn’t take much education to write things like ‘Drop your plans or else’. I looked at the photographs of the dead animals, but a dead sheep to me is just something on the way to being chops as a dead cow is a T-bone in the making. And a dead horse is one I won’t lose money on at Randwick. Jacko had retrieved the bullets. All I learned from them was that a heavier calibre weapon had been used on the cows and horses than on the sheep.