The Broken Shore

by Peter Temple

‘Out of the vehicle, please, sir. With your ID.’

  The man turned, reaching backwards. Cashin saw skin colour, the man was half-naked, he was looking for his pants.

  Cashin stood well back, hand inside his jacket, eased the gun in the clip.

  The man moved, struggled, he couldn’t get his pants on. ‘Listen,’ he said through the gap. ‘Somethin a bit private goin on here, y’know. Gissus a break, will you?’

  ‘Get out and put your pants on,’ said Cashin. ‘Sir.’

  The door opened. A thin man, late twenties. He moved his legs out, open flannel shirt over a teeshirt, no shoes, hole in a red sock, one leg in his denims, stood in the weeds to pull them up, zip. He had a pimple on a thigh.

  He reached inside, found a wallet, offered it. ‘Driver’s, credit, all kinds of shit.’

  ‘Put it on the roof,’ Cashin said, ‘and stand against the shed.’

  ‘Jesus, mate, I’m just a fuckin brickie.’

  He obeyed. Cashin took the wallet, looked at cards. Allan James Morris, an address in Cromarty. He wrote it down. ‘Phone number?’

  He gave Cashin a mobile number.

  ‘Now if you’ll help the person with you get out, I’d like some ID there too,’ said Cashin.

  Morris walked back to the van, opened the back door, there was an exchange. A girl in jeans and a short pleated pink jacket got out. She was no more than fifteen, dark hair, pretty, it wouldn’t last. Her lips were puffy, lipstick smeared.

  ‘ID, please,’ said Cashin.

  She opened a wallet, offered a card. Cashin looked at it.

  ‘Not you,’ he said, flicked the card back across the bonnet. ‘Got some real ID? We can do this at the station. Get your mum and dad in.’

  She pouted, eye-flick to Morris, produced another card, school ID with a photograph: Stacey-Ann Gettigan.

  ‘Fourteen, Stacey,’ he said. ‘In the back of a van with a grown man.’

  ‘Just waggin,’ she said. She folded her arms under her breasts. ‘Not a crime.’

  ‘What do you reckon, Allan?’ Cashin said. ‘Crime to be jumping a fourteen-year-old in your van?’

  ‘Just kissin and that,’ said Morris.

  ‘Take your pants off to kiss? Kissing with your bum? You married, Allan?’

  Morris scratched his head. He was in sunlight and Cashin saw dandruff motes fly into the still air. The girl was looking down, biting on a painted nail. ‘Listen,’ said Morris, ‘no harm done, I swear.’

  ‘Married, Allan?’

  ‘Yeah. Sort of.’

  ‘Sort of? They got that now? Do a sort of ceremony in church?’

  Morris didn’t want to look at Cashin. Cashin motioned to the girl to follow him. They went around the shed. He said, ‘Got a complaint you’d like to make against this man, Stacey? Made you do something against your will? Threaten you? This’s your chance.’

  She closed her eyes, shook her head. ‘No. Nothin.’

  ‘Sure? I’m going to write all this down, that I asked you. Want to talk somewhere else, on your own? A woman cop?’

  ‘No,’ she said.

  Cashin went back and beckoned to Morris, walked down the block a few paces. The man came, not easy in his skin, a rabbitty look. They stood in the weeds. White clouds moved across the pools of rain on the concrete slab.

  ‘What’s she to you, then?’ said Cashin.

  ‘Cousin, some kind, I dunno exactly.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘She’s on at me all the time, come to me work even. I done nothin. Today’s the first…anyway, nothin happened. I swear.’

  ‘Not Deke Gettigan’s granddaughter, is she?’

  Morris scratched his head with both hands as if suddenly attacked by lice. ‘Mate, they’ll fuckin kill me,’ he said. ‘Please, mate.’

  ‘Don’t bring any more kids here to root, Allan,’ said Cashin. ‘Nowhere near here. There’s an alert on your van from now on. And you’re not the builder here, are you?’

  ‘Me mate, he’s kind of, he’s the…’

  ‘You come down this way to do a bit of building, that’s building I’m talking about, not fucking under-age girls, you let me know, Allan. Then I’ll tell the school they don’t have to worry about a man with his cock out, he’s just having a piss. Okay?’

  ‘Right, sure. Thanks.’

  Cashin looked back as he walked away. The girl held his eyes. She knew she was out of this, he wasn’t going to dob them, and she smiled at him, bold, sexual, ancient wisdom.

  AT THE station, Carl Wexler came out of the front door making flexing bodybuilder’s movements. He was a year out of the academy, not stupid, third in his course, but a city boy, resentful about being posted away from the action.

  Cashin lowered his window.

  ‘Cromarty rang, boss,’ Wexler said. ‘Senior Hopgood for you.’

  Cashin went in and rang.

  ‘Your mate Inspector Villani sends his love,’ said Hopgood. ‘How is it that wogs have taken over this force?’

  ‘Natural selection,’ said Cashin. ‘Survival of the best dressed.’

  ‘Yeah, well, he’s given me the benefit of his wog opinions. He wants you to ring.’

  Cashin didn’t say anything. Hopgood put the phone down.

  The city switch put Cashin straight through.

  ‘How’s retirement?’ said Villani. ‘I went down there once. Very nice. I hear the surfies call it the Blue Balls Coast.’

  ‘Wimps,’ Cashin said. ‘What?’

  ‘Joe, listen, this Bourgoyne was news to me but the media put that right. Then Commisioner Wicken yesterday explains to me how connected the step-daughter is, senior partner at Rothacker Julian, the Labor Party’s legal wing.’

  ‘That now carries some weight in a homicide?’

  ‘I’m finding out all kinds of stuff. Today Mr Pommy Commissioner Wicken gives me hints on conducting myself in public. Fashion tips too. What suit, what shirt, what shoes. I enjoyed that so very much.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I want you on this.’

  ‘I’m the cripple running Port Monro now. Send that prick Allen.’

  ‘Joe, we are thinner than the Durex Phantom. Jantz, Campbell and Maguire, all retired in one month. DePiero quit, Tozer’s on stress leave, your mate Allen, his wife buggered off with a butcher from Vic Market, took the kids. Now he’s found some mystical shit, living in the fucking moment. I wouldn’t send him to a Buddhist domestic.’

  A pause.

  ‘Also,’ said Villani, ‘when the newspapers get down there in a few days, you’ll see the former drug squad’s criminal mates are again killing each other. The big boss woman’s supposed to have sacked all the dirtbags and elevated the cleanskins but whoopy do, here we go again. So I’ve got a number of people committed to the utterly pointless shit of trying to find out which particular cunt killed some other cunt for whose death we should be grateful. As a city. As a state. A country. As a fucking world.’

  ‘I think you’re over-excited,’ said Cashin. ‘On Bourgoyne, what’s to show for the forensic geniuses you had here?’

  ‘Bugger all. The alarm was off. No break-in, no prints, no weapon. No strange DNA. Don’t know what’s gone except the watch. There’s locked drawers broken open in the study and his bedroom.’

  ‘And him?’

  ‘It’s likely to be murder. Lives, he’s a cabbage.’

  ‘Did you ever ask yourself why they hit on the cabbage? What about the carrot? How about the Brussels sprout?’

  ‘Let’s leave the philosophy for the pub, gentlemen.’

  It was a Singo saying, from the time before Rai Sarris.

  ‘So what am I supposed to do?’ said Cashin.

  ‘This Rothacker Julian connection, we need a senior officer on the job. I don’t want any fuck-ups. I’m new in the tower, Joe, I can feel the wind. This’ll end up some dumb In Cold Blood thing, I feel it in my dick, it’s just the in-between shit we have to manage.’

  ‘What about Cromarty?’

 
‘Fuck them. This is the commissioner speaking.’

  ‘And I say no?’

  ‘Listen, son, you are still a member of homicide. You’re a member on holiday. Remember duty?’

  ‘Some things about it, yes.’

  ‘I’m glad I don’t have to say any more.’

  ‘You arsehole.’

  ‘Come around to my office and repeat that to a senior officer,’ said Villani. ‘First, a talk with Ms Bourgoyne, the step-daughter. She’s been asked to go down and take a look, should be there in about an hour. Cromarty’s opening the place.’

  ‘She’s been interviewed?’

  ‘Not really. What we need is for you to be with her when she sees the house. Find out what was in the drawers, if she can see anything else missing, anything unusual while she was there, any ideas she can give us.’

  ‘Sure you need a senior officer? Why don’t you just give your marvellously detailed instructions to some prick from traffic?’

  ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry. Jesus, don’t be so touchy.’

  ‘What about other family?’

  ‘No one close. There was a step-son, Erica’s brother. She says he drowned in Tassie a long time ago.’

  ‘She says?’

  ‘We’ll verify that. Okay? We’ll get some prick from traffic to check that out. Give him detailed instructions.’

  ‘Just asking.’

  CASHIN DROVE out to the Bourgoyne house, up the steep road from the highway, through the gates, down the winding poplar drive, and parked in the same place as before. The gravel showed the marks of many vehicles.

  He parked and waited, listened to the radio, thought about being on the road with his mother, the other children he met, some of them feral kids, not going to school, beach urchins, the white ones burnt dark brown or freckled and always shedding pieces of papery skin. He thought about the boy who taught him to surf, in New South Wales, it might have been Ballina. Gavin was the boy’s name. He offered the use of a board with a big piece out of it.

  ‘Shark, mate,’ said Gavin. ‘Chewed the bloke in half. He don’t need it no more, you can have a lend of it.’ When they left, Gavin gave him the board. Where was Gavin now? Where was the board? Cashin had loved that board, covered the gap with tape.

  I’m bored here, love. We’re going.

  His mother had said before every move further north.

  Cashin got out of the car to stretch his spine, walked in a circle. A vehicle was coming.

  A black Saab came around the bend, parked next to the cruiser. The driver eased himself out, a big man, cropped hair, wearing jeans and a leather jacket, open.

  ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘John Jacobs, Orton Private Security Group. I’m ex-SOG. Mind if I see the ID?’

  Police Special Operations Group membership was supposed to bestow some kind of divinity that transcended being kicked out for cowardice or for turning out to be a violent psychopath.

  Cashin looked at the cruiser. ‘That’s my car. Your idea is I could be a dangerous person stole a cop car?’

  ‘Don’t take anything for granted,’ Jacobs said. ‘Used to be standard police practice.’

  ‘Still is,’ said Cashin. ‘And I’m the one who asks for ID. Let’s see it.’

  Jacobs gave him a closed-lips smile, then a glint of left canine while he took out a plastic card with a photograph. Cashin took his time looking at it, looking at Jacobs.

  ‘You’re keeping the lady waiting,’ said Jacobs. ‘Need better light? Sure you don’t want back-up?’

  ‘What’s your job today?’ said Cashin.

  ‘I’m looking after Ms Bourgoyne. What do you reckon?’

  Cashin gave back the card. Jacobs went around the car and opened the passenger door. A woman got out, a blonde, tall, thin, the wind moved her long hair. She raised a hand to control it. Early forties, Cashin guessed.

  ‘Ms Bourgoyne?’

  ‘Yes.’ She was handsome, sharp features, grey eyes.

  ‘Detective Cashin. Inspector Villani spoke to you, I understand.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you mind if we have a look around? Without Mr Jacobs, if that’s okay?’

  ‘I don’t know what to expect,’ she said.

  ‘It’s always difficult,’ said Cashin. ‘But what we’ll do is walk through the house. You have a good look, tell me if anything catches your eye.’

  ‘Thank you. Well, let’s go in the side door.’

  She led the way around the verandah. On the east side was an expanse of raked gravel dotted with smooth boulders, ending in a clipped hedge. She opened a glass door to a quarry-tiled room with wicker chairs around low tables. There wasn’t any sun but the room was warm.

  ‘I’d like to get this over with as soon as possible,’ said Erica.

  ‘Of course. Did Mr Bourgoyne keep money on the premises?’

  ‘I have no idea. Why would he?’

  ‘People do. What’s through that door.’

  ‘A passage.’

  She led the way into a wide passage. ‘These are bedrooms and a sitting room,’ she said and opened a door. Cashin went in and switched on the overhead light. It was a big room, curtains drawn, four pen-and-ink drawings in black frames on the walls. They were all by the same hand, suggestions of street scenes, severe, vertical lines, unsigned.

  The bed was large, white covers, big pillows. ‘There’s nothing to steal here,’ Erica said.

  The next two rooms were near-identical. Then a bathroom and a small sitting room.

  They went into the large hall, two storeys high, lit by a skylight. A huge staircase dominated the space. ‘There’s the big dining room and the small one,’ said Erica.

  ‘What’s upstairs?’

  ‘Bedrooms.’

  Cashin looked into the dining rooms. They appeared undisturbed. At the door to the big sitting room, Erica stopped and turned to him.

  ‘I’ll go first,’ he said.

  The room smelled faintly of lavender and something else. The light from the high window lay on the carpet in front of where the slashed painting had hung. The bloodstain was hidden by a sheet of black plastic, taped down.

  Cashin went over and opened the cedar armoire against the left wall: whisky, brandy, gin, vodka, Pimms, Cinzano, sherries, liqueurs of all kinds, wine glasses, cut-glass whisky glasses and tumblers, martini glasses.

  A small fridge held soda water, tonic, mineral water. No beer.

  ‘Do you know what was kept in the desk?’

  The small slim-legged table with a leather top stood against a wall.

  Erica shrugged.

  Cashin opened the left-hand drawer. Writing pads, envelopes, two fountain pens, two ink bottles. Cashin removed the top pad, opened it, held it up to the light. No impressions. The other drawer held a silver paperknife, a stapler, boxes of staples, a punch, paperclips.

  ‘Why didn’t they take the sound stuff?’ she said.

  Cashin looked at the Swedish equipment. It had been the most expensive on the market once.

  ‘Too big,’ he said. ‘Was there a television?’

  ‘In the other sitting room. My step-father didn’t like television much.’

  Cashin looked at the shelves of CDs beside the player. Classical music. Orchestral. Opera, dozens of disks. He removed one, put it in the slot, pressed the buttons.

  Maria Callas.

  The room’s acoustics were perfect. He closed his eyes.

  ‘Is this necessary?’ said Erica.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Cashin. He pushed the OFF button. The sound of Callas seemed to linger in the high dark corners.

  They left the room, another passage.

  ‘That’s the study,’ she said.

  He went in. A big room, three walls covered with photographs in dark frames, a few paintings, and the fourth floor-to-ceiling books. The desk was a curve of pale wood on square dark pillars tapering to nothing. The chair was modern too, leather and chrome. A more comfortable-looking version stood in front of the window.

  The drawer lo
cks of two heavy and tall wooden cabinets, six drawers each, had been forced, possibly with a crowbar. They had been left as found on the morning.

  ‘Any idea what was in them?’ said Cashin.

  ‘No idea at all.’

  Cashin looked: letters, papers. He walked around the walls, looked at the photographs. They seemed to be arranged chronologically and, to his eye, span at least seventy or eighty years—family groups, portraits, young men in uniform, weddings, parties, picnics, beach scenes, two men in suits standing in front of a group of men in overalls, a building plaque being unveiled by a woman wearing a hat.

  ‘Which one’s your step-father?’ he said.

  Erica took him on a tour, pointed at a smiling small boy, a youth in school uniform, in cricket whites, in a football team, a thin-faced young man in a dinner jacket, a man in middle age shaking hands with an older man. Charles Bourgoyne had aged slowly and well, not losing a single brushed hair.

  ‘Then there are the horses,’ she said, pointing. ‘Probably more important than the people in his life.’

  A wall of pictures of horses and people with horses. Dozens of finishing-post photographs, some sepia, some tinted, a few in colour. Charles Bourgoyne riding, leading, stroking, kissing horses.

  ‘Your mother,’ said Cashin. ‘Is she still alive?’

  ‘No. She died when I was young.’

  Cashin looked at the bookshelves: novels, history, biography, rows of books about Japan and China, their art, culture. Above them were books about World War II, the war against Japan, about Australian prisoners of the Japanese.

  There were shelves of pottery books, technical titles, three shelves.

  They moved on.

  ‘This is his bedroom,’ said Erica Bourgoyne. ‘I’ve never been into it and I don’t think I’ll change that now.’

  Cashin entered a white chamber: bed, table, simple table lamp, small desk, four drawers open. The lower ones had been broken open. Through a doorway was a dressing room. He looked at Bourgoyne’s clothes: jackets, suits, shirts on hangers, socks and underwear in drawers, shoes on a rack. Everything looked expensive, nothing looked new.

  There was a red lacquered cupboard. He opened it and a clean smell of cedar filled his nostrils. Silken garments on hangers, a shelf with rolled-up sashes.