He asked. She spoke on the telephone.
‘Down the passage,’ she said, a big smile, lots of gum. ‘At the end.’
The door was open, her desk was to the right. Helen was waiting for him, looking up, unsmiling. He stood in the doorway.
‘Two things,’ he said. ‘In order of importance.’
‘Yes?’
‘Donny,’ he said. ‘I’ve raised the harassment. They deny it. I’ll take it as far as I can.’
‘Donny’s dead,’ she said. ‘He shouldn’t be. He was a boy who wasn’t very bright and who was very scared.’
‘We didn’t want that. We wanted a trial.’
‘We? Is that you and Hopgood? You were fishing. You had nothing.’
‘The watch.’
‘Being with someone trying to sell a watch is evidence of nothing. Even having the watch means nothing.’
‘I’ll move on to the fence,’ said Cashin.
‘You’ve taken more than a metre from my property,’ she said. ‘Have your own survey done if you don’t accept mine.’
‘That’s not what bothers you. You thought the property went to the creek.’
‘Quite another matter. What I want you to do, Detective Cashin, is to take down the fence you so hastily…’
‘I’ll sell you the strip to the creek.’
He had not planned to say this.
Helen’s head went back. ‘Is that what this is about? Are you a friend of the agent?’
Cashin felt the flush. ‘Offer withdrawn,’ he said. ‘Goodbye.’
He was in the doorway when she said, ‘Joe, don’t go. Please.’
He turned, conscious of the blood in his cheeks, did not want to meet her eyes.
She had a hand up. ‘I’m sorry. I retract that. And my outburst on the evening, I apologise for that too. Unlawyerly behaviour.’
The disdain, then the surrender. He didn’t know what to do.
‘Accept?’ she said.
‘Okay. Yeah.’
‘Good. Sit down, Joe. Let’s start again, we know each other in a way, don’t we?’
Cashin sat.
‘I want to ask you something about Donny.’
‘Yes?’
‘There’s something, it came up, it bothers me.’
‘Yes?’
‘The pursuit, roadblock, whatever it was, that was because of a watch someone tried to sell in Sydney. Is that right?’
Cashin was going to say yes when Bobby Walshe came into his mind. This was about politics, the three crucified black boys. Bobby wasn’t going to let it rest, there was mileage left, miles and miles. She wanted to use him.
‘There’s the coroner to come,’ he said. ‘How’s Bobby Walshe?’
Helen Castleman bit her lip, looked away, he admired her profile.
‘This’s not about politics, Joe,’ she said. ‘It’s about the boys, the families. The whole Daunt. It’s about justice.’
He said nothing, he could not trust himself.
‘Do cops think about things like justice, Joe? Truth? Or is it like your football team, it can do no wrong and winning is everything?’
‘Cops think much like lawyers,’ said Cashin. ‘Only they don’t get rich and people try to kill them. What’s the point here?’
‘Donny’s mother says that Corey Pascoe’s sister told her mother Corey had a watch, an expensive-looking watch.’
‘When was that?’
‘About a year ago.’
‘Well, who knows what Corey had?’ Cashin heard the roughness in his voice. ‘Watches and what else?’
‘Will you do anything about this?’
‘It’s not in my hands.’
She said nothing, unblinking. He wanted to look away but he couldn’t.
‘So you’re not interested?’
Cashin was going to repeat himself but Hopgood came into his mind. ‘If it makes you happy, I’ll talk to the sister,’ he said.
‘I can get her to come here. You can use the spare office.’
‘Not here, no.’ That was not a good idea.
‘She’s scared of cops. I wonder why?’
There had been a Pascoe in his class at primary school. ‘Ask them if they know Bern Doogue,’ he said. ‘Tell them the cop is Bern’s cousin.’
Cashin bought the Cromarty Herald at the newsagent. He didn’t look at it until the lights, waiting to cross.
MOUTH RESORT GO-AHEAD
Council approves $350m plan
He read as he walked. Smooth and tanned Adrian Fyfe was going to get his development, subject to an enviromental impact assessment. Nothing about access, about buying the Companions camp from the Bourgoyne estate.
CASHIN SAW them as he rounded the old wool store-two big men and a woman near the end of the jetty. He parked, got out, put his hands in the pockets of his bluey and walked into a wind that smelled of salt and fish, with hints of burnt diesel.
The jetty planks were old and deeply furrowed, the gaps between them wide enough to lose a fishing knife to the sea, see it flash as it hit the water. Only three other people were out in the weather, a man and a small boy sitting side by side, arms touching, fishing with handlines, and an old man layered with clothing, holding a rod over the railing. His beanie was pulled down to his eyebrows, a red nose poking out of grey stubble.
The men watched him coming, the woman standing between them had her eyes down. Closer, Cashin could see that she was a tall girl, fifteen or sixteen, snub nose, bad skin.
‘Joe Cashin,’ he said when he reached them. He didn’t offer to shake hands.
‘Chris Pascoe,’ said the man closest, the bigger of the two. He had a broken nose. ‘This’s Susie. Don’t remember you from the school.’
‘Yeah, well, if you remember Bern Doogue, I was there.’
‘Tough little shit that Bern. All the Doogues. Seen him around, not so little now, he don’t know me. Gone white, I reckon.’
The other man stared into the distance, chin up, like a figurehead. He had dreadlocks pushed back, a trimmed beard and a gold ring in the visible earlobe.
‘The lawyer says there’s something I should know,’ said Cashin.
‘Tell him, Suse,’ said Pascoe to the girl.
Susie blinked rapidly, didn’t look at Cashin. ‘Corey had a watch,’ she said. ‘Before he went to Sydney.’
‘What kind of watch?’
‘Leather strap, it had all these little clock things.’ She made tiny circles on her wrist. ‘Expensive.’
‘Did he say where he’d got it?’
‘Didn’t know I’d seen it. I was just lookin for my CDs, he pinched my CDs all the time.’
‘Why didn’t you ask him?
She looked at Cashin, eyebrows up, big brown eyes. ‘So he’d know I looked in his room? Shit, not that fuckin brave.’
‘Watch your language,’ said her father.
‘If I showed you a picture of the watch, would you recognise it?’ said Cashin.
Susie shrugged inside the anorak, it barely moved. ‘Dunno.’
‘You had a good look at it?’
‘Yeah.’
Cashin thought about the band of pale skin on Bourgoyne’s wrist. ‘How come you’re not sure you’d recognise it?’
‘Dunno. I might.’
‘The name of the watch?’ he said. ‘Notice that?’
‘Yeah.’
Cashin looked at the men. It gained him nothing. The dreadlocked one was rolling a cigarette.
‘You remember the name?’
‘Yeah. Bretling. Something like that.’
‘Can you spell that?’
‘What’s this spell shit?’ said Chris Pascoe. ‘She seen the watch.’
‘Can you spell it?’
She hesitated. ‘Dunno. Like B-R-E-T-L-I-N-G.’
If they’d schooled her, she would have got it right. Unless they’d schooled her not to.
‘When was this?’ said Cashin.
‘Long time ago. A year, I spose.’
‘Tell me something,’ said Cashin. ‘Why’d you only talk about the watch now?’
‘Told me mum the day after.’
‘After what?’
‘After you shot Corey and Luke.’
He absorbed that. ‘What did she say?’
The girl looked, not at her father but at the dreadlocked man. He opened his mouth and the wind took smoke from it. Cashin couldn’t read his eyes.