The Broken Shore

by Peter Temple

  Bobby waited.

  ‘To boost advertising revenue. Make more money. Because, like the people behind Silverwater Estuary, money is all that matters. And this environmentally dangerous project means large amounts of advertising money for the paper. As for the company behind this, well, they’re just flakcatchers. It’ll be sold to other people once they get planning permission.’

  Walshe was wet now, rain was running down his face, his shirt was dark.

  ‘The state government can shut the door on this project in a second,’ he said. ‘They show no sign of doing that. It’s not in the coastal reserves, they say. It’s a matter for the shire council, they say. Does that mean that areas outside the coastal reserve are fair game for any shonky developer who comes along? I’m here today to say to hell with that bureaucratic rubbish. United Australia will support you in this fight. In all the fights like this going on all over our country. And that includes the cities.’

  Bobby brushed water from his hair, put his hands in the air. ‘One last thing,’ he said. ‘Do you know what a project like this is? I’ll tell you what it is. It’s an insult to the future.’

  Applause. Bobby Walshe shook his head and rain droplets flew.

  Cashin thought that Walshe knew how this would look on television: a handsome politician standing in the rain for a cause more important than his comfort.

  To long applause, Bobby stood down. There followed a bad speech by a man with a bad haircut and a bad beard, shire councillor Barry Doull. When the hard rain came, Sue shut him up, said the thanks, directed people to the Save the Mouth fighting fund booth.

  The crowd broke up, people wanted to shake Bobby Walshe’s hand and he shook every one offered, bent to talk to an old lady and she kissed him, the camera on them. The school crocodile re-formed, set off, taking the short route home.

  Cashin walked back with Kendall. ‘A spunk,’ she said. ‘He’s got my vote. I didn’t know he was local.’

  ‘Make sure it’s his policies you like,’ Cashin said.

  In the main street, Bobby Walshe did a short on-camera interview with the woman who’d arrived with him. Now Cashin recognised her from when he and Dove were leaving the Cromarty station to go to court. She had asked the question.

  Bobby talked to Helen Castleman. They were animated. He looked over his shoulder, met Cashin’s eyes, said something to Helen. They came over.

  ‘I know you,’ said Walshe. ‘Joe Cashin. Bern Doogue’s cousin. From primary school.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Walshe put out a hand, they shook.

  ‘How’s Bern?’ he said.

  ‘Fine. Good.’

  ‘What’s he do now?’

  ‘Well, this and that.’

  ‘I couldn’t have survived primary school without Bern,’ said Walshe. ‘The best kid on your side in a fight.’

  ‘Some aptitude there, yes,’ said Cashin.

  Walshe laughed. ‘You see him?’

  ‘No week goes by.’

  ‘Luke and Corey,’ said Walshe. ‘You were there.’

  ‘Unfortunately.’

  ‘It’s a pretty sad business.’

  ‘Kids go around carrying shotguns, there’s always the chance things will turn sad.’

  Walshe shrugged. ‘Well, the inquest will decide whether it was his weapon, who fired first. Give Bern my regards. Tell him I haven’t forgotten.’

  ‘I’ll tell him.’

  They shook hands again.

  ‘Don’t forget to vote United Australia,’ said Walshe.

  ‘Can you vote for a soccer team?’

  Walshe laughed, Helen gave Cashin a downturned smile. They went back to the vehicle and the television woman spoke to Walshe again.

  Walking back to the station, Kendall said. ‘You didn’t say you knew him.’

  ‘He knows me. Listen, Billy Piggot. What’s he mean to you?’

  ‘Don’t know a Billy. There’s a Ray Piggot that’s a piece of work.’

  ‘What’s he done?’

  ‘Ripped off a rep staying at the motel. Five hundred-odd bucks. The bloke came in the next morning. Cromarty handled it.’

  ‘Ripped off how?’

  ‘He had a story, the rep, but it was probably…’ She made a sign with her right hand, the wiggle.

  ‘Pillars of society, the Piggots,’ said Cashin. ‘Well, I’m off, two weeks to life, starting in five minutes.’

  ‘And we’re fully staffed. If you call a musclebound beach boy and a work-experience kid staff.’

  ‘With your guidance, they’ll grow,’ said Cashin. ‘Be fair but firm. Brunette but soft.’

  She gave him a little nudge in the back with a fist, an act of disrespect given his rank, insubordination really.

  LATE IN the day, a man in his seventies called Mick arrived from outside Kenmare and towed a mower around Tommy Cashin’s wilderness, broke bottles, mangled metal, bumped over solid obstacles hidden in the grass.

  ‘Should charge you bloody danger money,’ he said when he’d loaded the tractor and the mower onto his truck. ‘Can’t, can I? Cause I’m doin this for nothin and you’re givin me sixty bucks to pass on to the charity of my choosin.’

  ‘I’m a cop,’ said Cashin. ‘Sworn to uphold the tax laws of our country.’

  ‘Make it fifty,’ said Mick.

  Cashin gave him a note. He folded it and tucked it into the sweat-band of his hat. People in this part of the world had an aversion to collecting the goods and services tax on behalf of the government.

  While the dogs hunted the cleared area, much taken with the smells released by the mowing, Dave Rebb and Cashin walked around the the ruined building, measuring it. Cashin held the end of the tape and Rebb wrote down the distances and drew on a pad of graph paper. At the end, they sat on a piece of wall and Rebb showed him what he had recorded.

  ‘Big,’ said Cashin. ‘Never thought it was that big.’

  ‘Rich bugger, was he?’

  ‘He made money on the goldfields, blew it all on the house. Also breeding horses, I think.’

  A wind had come up, flattening the grass beyond. They could smell the land it had run over, smell the cold sea.

  ‘He must’ve gone nuts early,’ said Rebb. ‘Could’ve built it somewhere warm.’

  ‘It’s about showing off,’ said Cashin. ‘He had to do it here. The Cashins had bugger all before that. Bugger all after that too.’

  Rebb finished making a smoke, lit it, spat tobacco strands off his bottom lip. ‘So you want to do that again, more showing off?’

  ‘I do. What now?’

  ‘Asking me? What do I know?’

  They sat for a while, stood, the wind stronger now, pushing at them. They watched the dogs. The animals sensed their eyes, looked around, ran over and visited briefly, went back to work. Cashin thought about the stupidity of the project. This was the moment to quit, no harm done.

  ‘What about the picture?’ said Rebb. ‘There’s a whole piece missing, blown to buggery. Also we need a shelter, keep stuff dry.’

  They walked back, the dark ponding in the valley. Days ended quickly now, twenty minutes from full light to ink black. Cashin’s body ached from the bending.

  Near the shed, Rebb said, ‘Old bloke give me a bunny. In the fridge. See that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Bin there two days. Better cook it tonight.’

  Cashin didn’t say anything. He didn’t feel like cooking.

  ‘I can do it,’ said Rebb. ‘A bunny stew.’

  A moment of hesitation. A cop meets a swaggie, the swaggie goes to live on his property, cooks meals. The locals would take a keen interest in this. Poofs, mate. Detective Poof and his swaggie bumchum.

  Cashin didn’t care. ‘Sounds good,’ he said. ‘Go for your life.’

  He fed the dogs, made a fire, got out beers, sat down, some relief from the pain. Rebb cooked like someone who’d done it before, cutting up the rabbit, chopping the wilted vegetables, browning the meat.

  ‘This
wine?’ said Rebb, pointing at a bottle on the shelf. ‘Saving it for something?’

  ‘There’s a corkscrew hanging there.’

  Rebb opened the wine, poured some into the pot, added water. ‘That’s done,’ he said. ‘Be back.’

  He went to the side door and the dogs roused themselves and followed him out. Cashin read the newspaper, drowsed. Rebb came back, dogs in first, they came to greet Cashin as if they’d been to the North Pole, thinking of him all the way there and back.

  Cashin thought it was a very good stew, piled on rice. He ate in front of the fire and the television. Dave ate at the table, reading the newspaper. The news came on. The Port Monro march was item number six:

  United Australia leader Bobby Walshe was in the seaside town of Port Monro today to speak at a rally against a proposed resort development.

  The rally had things television liked: kids holding hands with the elderly, singing, the brief fistfight.

  ‘That bloke’s lucky to escape an assault charge,’ said Cashin without looking at Rebb.

  ‘Self defence,’ said Rebb. ‘He didn’t hurt him much.’

  ‘You swaggies know how to handle yourselves.’

  ‘Just a drunk,’ said Rebb. ‘No challenge there.’

  They watched the snatches of Bobby Walshe’s speech. He looked good wet, there was a close-up, raindrops running down his face. They saw the old lady kiss him, his kind smile, his hand on her elbow.

  Walshe did a brief interview. Then the camera followed him and Helen Castleman going over to Cashin and Kendall and Wexler. The camera zoomed.

  Cashin shuddered. He hadn’t seen the lens pointing, he would have turned away. The woman with the freeze-dried hair said: ‘Bobby Walshe also took the opportunity to speak to Detective Joe Cashin. Cashin was one of the police present at the death on Thursday of Walshe’s nephew Corey Pascoe and another Aboriginal youth, Luke Ericsen, both from the Daunt Settlement outside Cromarty.’

  Bobby Walshe again, running a hand through his damp hair: ‘Just saying hello to the officer. I went to primary school with him. My hope is we’ll find out exactly what happened that night and we’ll get justice for the dead boys. I say I hope. Aboriginal people have lived in hope of justice for two hundred-odd years.’

  Rebb got up, went to the sink, washed his plate, his knife and fork. ‘You shoot that kid?’ he said, neutral tone.

  Cashin looked at him. ‘No. But I would have if he’d pointed the shotgun at me.’

  ‘I’ll be off then.’

  ‘You’ve got a touch with a dead bunny,’ said Cashin. ‘Bring one around any time.’

  At the door, dogs trying to go out with him, Rebb said, ‘When’s the chainsaw coming?’

  ‘Tomorrow. Bern reckons he’ll drop it off with the water tanker first thing. That could be sparrow, could be midnight.’

  ‘Also. We need stuff—cement, sand, timber, all that. I wrote it down by the sink there.’

  ‘How much cement?’

  Cashin thought he saw pity in Rebb’s eyes. ‘Make it six bags.’

  ‘Need a cement-mixer?’

  Rebb shook his head. ‘Not unless you planning to bring in a few more innocent blokes you find on the road.’

  ‘I’m always looking,’ said Cashin.

  He rang Bern and then, tired, hurting, sad, he went to bed early. Sleep came, a nightmare woke him, a new one. Dark and rain and garish light and screaming, people everywhere, confusion. He was trapped, held by something octopus-like, he fought it, it was crushing him, the space was shrinking, no air, he was suffocating, dying, terrified.

  Awake in the big chamber, thin green light from the radio clock, feeling his heart in his chest and hearing the wind planing over the corrugations.

  He got up. The dogs heard him and barked and he let them in. They ran for the bed, bumping, jumped, snuggled down. Cashin put on the standing lamp, threw wood into the stove, wrapped himself in a blanket and sat down with Nostromo.

  Always an army chaplain—some unshaven, dirty man, girt with a sword and with a tiny cross embroidered in white cotton on the left breast of a lieutenant’s uniform—would follow, cigarette in the corner of the mouth, wooden stool in hand, to hear the confession and give absolution; for the Citizen Saviour of the Country (Guzman Bento was called thus officially in petitions) was not averse from the exercise of rational clemency. The irregular report of the firing squad would be heard, followed sometimes by a single finishing shot; a little bluish cloud of smoke would float up above the green bushes…

  He fell asleep in the big shabby chair, woke in early light, two dogs nudging him, their tails crossing like furry metronomes. The phone on the counter rang when he was filling the kettle.

  ‘Constable Martin, Cromarty, boss. I’m instructed to tell you that Donny Coulter’s mother rang a few minutes ago to says he’s missing. She doesn’t know since when. She saw him in bed at 11 pm last night.’

  Cashin put a hand over the mouthpiece and cleared his throat. ‘He hasn’t done anything till he doesn’t clock in. Tell his mum to check his mates, see if anyone else’s gone. Call me on the mobile.’

  He went outside, had a piss, looking at the hillside. The scarlet maples came and went through the mist like spot fires. He moved his shoulders, trying to ease the stiffness.

  Donny wasn’t going to sign the bail book at 10 am. He knew that.

  ‘DONNY DIDN’T show,’ said Hopgood. ‘The mother says the little prick’s been weepy.’

  In misty rain, Cashin and Rebb had just started clearing the path that led to the former front door, uncovering red fired tiles, the colour still bright.

  ‘She’s had a look around?’ said Cashin.

  ‘I gather.’

  ‘What about his mates?’

  ‘Sounds like they’re accounted for. Fastafuckingsleep like the rest of the boongs.’

  ‘Take anything? Bag, clothes?’

  ‘I would’ve said.’

  Cashin was watching Rebb digging into the deep layer of couch grass, weeds, earth. He swung the long-handled spade tirelessly, scooping, scraping the hidden tiles. It made Cashin feel feeble, his own excavations meagre things.

  ‘You might be on holiday but you’re still in charge,’ said Hopgood. ‘We await instructions.’

  ‘Bail violation,’ said Cashin. ‘Matter for the uniforms. The liaison bloke can work with Donny’s mum, get the locals to search the whole Daunt. Every garage, shed and shithouse.’

  ‘The locals are going to find Donny? You off the medication?’

  Cashin looked at the sky. ‘Keep me posted,’ he said.

  Back to digging his side of the path, feeling hollow in the stomach, as if he hadn’t eaten for a long time. He was four or five metres along, Rebb as far as that ahead of him, when the water trailer arrived, a battered tank towed by Bern’s Dodge truck, equally dented and scarred. Bern got out, unshaven, greasy overalls, cigarette in mouth. He looked around, unpleased by what he saw.

  ‘Jesus, you’re nuts,’ he said. ‘Cash on delivery.’

  ‘Half past eleven?’ said Cashin. ‘This’s first thing?’

  ‘First thing I’m deliverin to you today. One-twenty bucks for the chainie, all tools included, owned by an old lady cut flowers with it, twenty for the corrie iron, twenty a week for the tanker, four weeks minimum hire, ten for delivery. Water, free first time, that’s generous, refills ten. Let’s say two hundred, throw in the first top-up. Present to you since you’re family and a fuckwit.’

  Cashin walked around the water tanker. It had been crudely sprayed black with aerosol paint. But before that rust had set in where markings had been erased, probably with a steel brush on a grinder. The rust was bubbling the new paint.

  ‘Where’d you get this?’ he said.

  Bern flicked his cigarette end. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘you go in the McDonald’s drive-in, you ask the kid where’d you get the mince?’

  Cashin did another circuit of the tanker. ‘The army reserve complaint,’ he said. ‘They were do
wn the other side of Livermore, in the gorge, buggering about, rooting under canvas, went into town for a few beers. The next day they couldn’t find two water tankers and a big tent and some tarps and gas bottles. Missing in action.’

  ‘In the army reserve,’ said Bern, ‘takes three to wipe one arse. Bloke brung this in the yard. Says he’s coming back to talk money. Never seen him before, never see him again.’ He spat. ‘What more can I say?’

  ‘Don’t say anything that could be used against you in a court of law,’ said Cashin. He got out his wallet, offered four fifties.

  ‘What, no argument?’

  ‘No.’

  Bern took three fifties. ‘Jesus, you bring out the Christian in me.’

  ‘Be a small Christian. Like a garden gnome Christian. We need some building hardware here. The trowels and the spirit levels, that sort of thing.’

  Bern looked at Rebb, leaning on his spade, gaze elsewhere. ‘Hey, Dave,’ he shouted. ‘Know a bit more about buildin than this bloke?’

  Rebb turned, shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t know what he knows.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I suggest you blokes come around,’ said Bern. ‘I got some brickie’s stuff. Not cheap, mind you, hard to find. Take their gear to the grave, brickies.’

  ‘There was a burg at Cromarty Tech,’ said Cashin. ‘They got into the building department storeroom.’

  ‘Well, whoopy fuckin doo. Another thing I never heard of. You make up this shit, don’t you?’

  ‘I don’t want to buy anything on the list of items missing,’ said Cashin.

  ‘Where you get your ideas I dunno. Not a stain on me. Your mates come down on me, that fuckin Hopgood, him and a footy team of pricks. An hour of fuckin around, messin up my place, they go off empty-handed, not so much as a fuckin sorry.’ Bern spat. ‘Anyway, give us a hand with this iron,’ he said. ‘You got any good corrie iron stories?’

  They unloaded the corrugated iron. Bern got into the truck. ‘Dave, been meanin to ask,’ he said. ‘Don’t I know you from somewhere?’