‘She said don’t talk about it.’
‘Why?’
‘Dunno. That’s what she said.’
‘Got to go,’ said Chris Pascoe. ‘So she’s told you, right? Can’t say you don’t know now, right?’
‘No,’ said Cashin. ‘Can’t say that. Didn’t catch your friend’s name.’
‘Stevo,’ said Pascoe. ‘He’s Stevo. That right, Stevo?’
Stevo sucked on his cigarette, his cheeks hollowed. He flicked the stub, the wind floated it across the jetty. A gull swooped and took it. Stevo’s face came alive. ‘See that? Fuckin bird smokes.’
‘Thanks for your time,’ said Cashin. ‘Got a number I can ring you on?’
The men looked at each other. Stevo shrugged.
‘Give you my mobile,’ said Pascoe.
He found the mobile in his jacket and read out the number written on the cover.
Cashin wrote it in his book. ‘You’ll hear from me or the lawyer,’ he said. ‘Thank you, Susie.’
‘He wasn’t a bad kid, Corey,’ said Pascoe. ‘Could’ve played AFL footy. Just full of shit, thought he saw a fuckin career in dope. You a mate of Hopgood and that lot?’
‘No.’
‘But you’ll stick with the bastards, won’t you? All in together.’
‘I do my job. I don’t stick with anyone.’
Walking down the uneven planks, looking at the fishermen, at the shifting sea, Cashin felt the eyes on him. At the wool store, he turned his head.
The men hadn’t moved. They were watching him, backs against the rail. Susie was looking down at the sodden planks.
‘IT’S DIFFICULT,’ said Dove, his voice even hoarser on the telephone. ‘I’m not a free agent here.’
‘This thing’s a worry to me,’ said Cashin.
‘Yeah, well, you have worries and then you have other worries.’
‘Like what?’
‘I told you about the freezer. The election’s coming on. You go on worrying and then you’re in charge at Bringalbert North. And your mate Villani can’t save you.’
‘Where’s Bringalbert?’
‘Exactly. I have no fucking idea.’
‘The difference is that then we thought the boys had done it and you thought someone’d gone soft-cock on Donny, he was going to walk.’
‘Yeah, well. Then. Talked to Villani?’
‘He told me to get on with my holiday,’ said Cashin.
‘That’ll be coming from on high. The local pols don’t want to turn the sexy white hotel staff of Cromarty against them and the federal government doesn’t want to give Bobby Walshe any more oxygen than he’s getting now.’
It was late morning, a fire going. Cashin was on the floor in the Z-formation, trying to hollow his back, lower legs on an unstable kitchen chair. Silent rain on the roof, drops ghosting down the big window. No working on Tommy Cashin’s ruin today.
‘If this thing is left,’ he said, ‘it dies. The inquest will say very unfortunate set of events, no one to blame, it’ll pass into history, never be picked up again. Everyone’s dead. And then the kids and the families and the whole Daunt have it stuck on them. They murdered Charles Bourgoyne, a local saint. A stain forever.’
‘Tragic,’ said Dove. ‘Stains are tragic. I used to like those stain commercials on TV. Joe, do you get television where you are?’
‘And see what?’
‘Bobby Walshe and the dead black boys.’
‘I may be stuck out here in the arse,’ said Cashin, ‘but the brain’s still functioning. If you don’t want to do this, just say it.’
‘So touchy. What do you want?’
‘Bourgoyne’s watch. Did anyone bother to find out where he bought it? It’s fancy, I think they have numbers, like car engines.’
‘I’ll see. That doesn’t run to risking the Bumbadgery transfer.’
‘I thought it was Bringalbert North?’
‘I’m told they’re the twin stars in the one-cop constellation. Still doing that lying on the floor business?’
‘No.’
‘Pity. An interesting practice, a conversation starter. I’ll call you.’
Cashin disconnected, stared at the ceiling. He saw Dove’s serious face, the doubting eyes behind the little round glasses. After a while, he went into a near-sleep, hearing the rain coursing in the gutters and downpipes. It sounded like the creek in flood. He thought of going down to it after rain when he was a boy, the grass wetting him almost to the armpits, hearing the rushing sound, seeing the water brushing aside the overhanging branches, swamping mossy islands he’d fished from, foaming around and over the big rocks. In places there were whitewater races, small waterfalls. Once he saw a huge piece of the opposite bank break off. It fell slowly into the stream, exposing startled earthworms.
The money Cecily Addison paid out on behalf of Bourgoyne. Cecily’s payment records, he had them.
Cashin lifted his legs off the chair, rolled onto his right side, got up with difficulty and went to the table. The thick yellow folder was under layers of old newspapers.
He made a mug of tea, brought it to the table. The first payment sheet was dated January 1993. He flipped through them. Most months were a page, single-spaced.
Start at the beginning and work back? He looked at the top page. Names-shops, tradesmen, rates, power, water, telephones, insurance premiums. Others gave only dates, cheque numbers and amounts. He’d given up the first time he looked at the statements and then things happened and he never went back.
Cashin read, circled, tried to group the items. After an hour, he rang. Cecily Addison was not available, said Mrs McKendrick.
Taking her nap, thought Cashin. ‘This is the police,’ he said. ‘We’re terribly polite but we’ll come around and wake Mrs Addison if that’s necessary.’
‘Please hold on,’ she said. ‘I’ll see if she’ll speak to you.’
It was several minutes before Cecily Addison came on. ‘Yeees?’
‘Joe Cashin, Mrs Addison.’
‘Joe.’ Groggy voice. ‘Saw you on television, being rude. Won’t get promoted that way, my boy.’
‘Mrs Addison, the payments you made for Bourgoyne. Some don’t have names. You can’t tell who’s being paid.’
Cecily began clearing her throat. Cashin held the telephone away from his ear. After a while, Cecily said, ‘That’s the regulars, the wages, that sort of thing.’
‘There’s two grand every month to someone, going back to the beginning of these payments. What’s that?’
‘No idea. Charles provided an account number, the money was transferred.’
‘I need the numbers and the banks.’
‘Confidential, I’m afraid.’
Cashin sighed as loudly as he could. ‘Been through that with you, Mrs Addison. This is about a murder. I’ll come around with the warrant, we’ll take away all your files.’
A counter-sigh. ‘Not at my fingertips this information. Mrs McKendrick will ring.’
‘Inside ten minutes, please, Mrs Addison.’
‘Oh, right. Galvanised now, are we? It took the third dead boy and Bobby Walshe.’
‘I look forward to hearing from Mrs McKendrick. Very soon. Who was Mr McKendrick?’
‘She lost him in Malaya in the fifties. Tailgunner in a Lincoln.’
‘A man going forward while looking back,’ said Cashin. ‘I know that feeling.’
‘In this case, falling forward. Off a hotel balcony. Pissed as a parrot, excuse the expression.’
‘I’m shocked.’
Inside ten minutes, Mrs McKendrick provided the information, speaking as if to a blackmailer. Then Cashin had to ask Dove to make the inquiries. He rang when Cashin was bringing in firewood.
‘I had to suggest, tell half-lies,’ Dove said. ‘I hardly know you. From now on, I want you to tell your own half-lies.’
‘Truth Lite, everyone does it. The name?’ The day was almost done, embers behind the western hills.
‘A. Pollard. 128A Collet Street, North Melbourne. All withdrawals through local ATMs.’