After a while, the female medic said, ‘Three on coma scale. Chopper, Dave.’
The man took out a mobile phone.
‘The door was open,’ said the woman who had been waiting on the steps. She was behind Cashin. ‘I only went in a step, backed off, thought he was dead, I wanted to run, get in the car and get out of there. Then I thought, oh shit, he might be alive and I came back and I saw he was breathing.’
Cashin looked around the room. In front of a door in the left corner, a rug on the polished floorboards was rucked. ‘What’s through there?’ he said, pointing.
‘Passage to the south wing.’
A big painting dominated the west wall, a dark landscape seen from a height. It had been slashed at the bottom, where a flap of canvas hung down.
‘He must have gone to bed early, didn’t use even half the wood Starkey’s boy brought in,’ she said.
‘See anything else?’
‘His watch’s not on the table. It’s always there with the whisky glass on the table next to the leather chair. He had a few whiskies every night.’
‘He took his watch off?’
‘Yeah. Left it on the table every night.’
‘Let’s talk somewhere else,’ Cashin said. ‘These people are busy.’
He followed her across a marble-floored foyer to a passage around a gravelled courtyard and into a kitchen big enough for a hotel. ‘What did you do when you got here?’ he said.
‘I just put my bag down and went through. Do that every day.’
‘I’ll need to take a look in the bag. Your name is…?’
‘Carol Gehrig.’ She was in her forties, pretty, with blonded hair, lines around her mouth. There were lots of Gehrigs in the area.
She fetched a big yellow cloth bag from a table at the far end of the room, unzipped it. ‘You want to dig around?’
‘No.’
She tipped the contents onto the table: a purse, two sets of keys, a glasses case, makeup, tissues, other innocent things.
‘Thanks,’ Cashin said. ‘Touch anything in there?’
‘No. I just put the bag down, went to the sitting room to fetch the whisky glass. Then I rang. From outside.’
Now they went outside. Cashin’s mobile rang.
‘Hopgood. What’s happening?’ He was the criminal investigation unit boss in Cromarty.
‘Charles Bourgoyne’s been bashed,’ he said. ‘Badly. Medics working on him.’
‘I’ll be there in a few minutes. No one touches anything, no one leaves, okay?’
‘Gee,’ Cashin said. ‘I was going to send everyone home, get everything nice and clean for forensic.’
‘Don’t be clever,’ said Hopgood. ‘Not a fucking joking matter this.’
Carol Gehrig was sitting on the second of the four broad stone steps that led to the front door. Cashin took the clipboard and went to sit beside her. Beyond the gravel expanse and the box hedges, a row of tall pencil pines was moving in the wind, swaying in unison like a chorus line of fat-bellied dancers. He had driven past this house hundreds of times and never seen more than the tall, ornate chimneys, sections of the red pantiled roof. The brass plate on a gate pillar said The Heights, but the locals called it Bourgoyne’s.
‘I’m Joe Cashin,’ he said. ‘You’d be related to Barry Gehrig.’
‘My cousin.’
Cashin remembered his fight with Barry Gehrig in primary school. He was nine or ten. Barry won that one, he made amends later. He sat on Barry’s shoulders and ground his pale face into the playground dirt.
‘What happened to him?’
‘Dead,’ she said. ‘Drove his truck off a bridge thing near Benalla. Overpass.’
‘I’m sorry. Didn’t hear about that.’
‘He was a deadshit, always drugged up. I’m sorry for the people in the car he landed on, squashed them.’
She found cigarettes, offered. He wanted one. He said no.
‘Worked here long?’
‘Twenty-six years. I can’t believe it. Seventeen when I started.’
‘Any idea what happened?’
‘Not a clue. No.’
‘Who might attack him?’
‘I’m saying, no idea. He’s got no enemies, Mr B.’
‘How old is Mr Bourgoyne?’
‘Seventy something. Seventy-five, maybe.’
‘Who lives here? Apart from him?’
‘No one. The step-daughter was here the day before yesterday. Hasn’t been here for a long time. Years.’
‘What’s her name?’
‘Erica.’
‘Know how to contact her?’
‘No idea. Ask Mrs Addison in Port Monro, the lawyer. She looks after business for Mr Bourgoyne.’
‘Anyone else work here?’
‘Bruce Starkey.’
Cashin knew the name. ‘The football player?’
‘Him. He does all the outside.’ She waved at the raked gravel, the trimmed hedges. ‘Well, now his boy Tay does. Bit simple, Tay, never says a word. Bruce sits on his arse and smokes mostly. They come Monday, Wednesday and Friday. And when he drives Mr B. Sue Dance makes lunch and dinner. Gets here about twelve, cooks lunch, cooks dinner, leaves it for him to heat up. Tony Crosby might as well be on a wage too, always something wrong with the plumbing.’
The male paramedic came out. ‘There’s a chopper coming,’ he said. ‘Where’s the best place to land?’
‘The paddock behind the stables,’ said Carol. ‘At the back of the house.’
‘How’s he doing?’ Cashin said.
The man shrugged. ‘Probably should be dead.’
He went back inside.
‘Bourgoyne’s watch,’ said Cashin. ‘Know what kind it was?’
‘Breitling,’ said Carol. ‘Smart watch. Had a crocodile-skin strap.’
‘How do you spell that?’
‘B-R-E-I-T-L-I-N-G.’
Cashin went to the cruiser, got Hopgood again. ‘They’re taking him to Melbourne. You might want to have a yarn with a Bruce Starkey and his young fella.’
‘What about?’
‘They’re both part-time here.’
‘So?’
‘Thought I’d draw it to your attention. And Bourgoyne’s watch’s probably stolen.’ He told him what Carol had said.
‘Okay. Be there in a couple of minutes. There’s three cars coming. Forensic can’t get a chopper till about 10.30.’
‘The step-daughter needs to be told,’ Cashin said. ‘She was here the day before yesterday. You can probably get an address from Cecily Addison in Port Monro, that’s Woodward, Addison & Cameron.’
‘I know who Cecily Addison is.’
‘Of course.’
Cashin went back to Carol. ‘Lots of cops coming,’ he said. ‘Going to be a long morning.’
‘I’m paid for four hours.’
‘Should be enough. What was he like?’
‘Fine. Good boss. I knew what he wanted, did the job. Bonus at Christmas. Month’s pay.’
‘No problems?’
Eyes on him, yellow flecks in the brown. ‘I keep the place like a hospital,’ she said. ‘No problems at all.’
‘You wouldn’t have any reason to try to kill him, would you?’
Carol made a sound, not quite a laugh. ‘Me? Like I’d kill my job? I’m a late starter, still got two kids on the tit, mate. There’s no work around here.’
They sat on the steps in the still enclosure, an early winter morning, quiet, just birdsounds, cars on the highway, and a coarse tractor somewhere.
‘Jesus,’ said Carol, ‘I feel so, it’s just getting to me… I could make us some coffee.’
Cashin was tempted. ‘Better not,’ he said. ‘Can’t touch anything. They’d come down on me like a tanker of pigshit. But I’ll take a smoke off you.’
Weakness, smoking. Life was weakness, strength was the exception. Their smoke hung in sheets, golden where it caught the sun.
A sound, just a pinprick at first. The dickheads, thought Cashin. They were coming with sirens.
‘Cromarty cops’ll take a full statement, Carol,’ he said. ‘They’ll be in charge of this but ring me if there’s anything you want to talk about, okay?’
‘Okay.’
They sat.
‘If he lives,’ said Cashin, ‘it’s because you got to work on time.’