The Broken Shore

by Peter Temple

  ‘Remember Vic Zable?’

  ‘Amnesia is not the problem.’

  ‘Yeah, well, Vic got it tonight, carpark at the arts centre, can you believe that? The guy doesn’t know an art from a fart. In his ribs, couldn’t get closer range unless you stick it up his arse. The shooter was sitting next to him, the silver Merc Kompressor, quadraphonic radio on, heater’s going, he gives Vic the whole magazine. One little fucker bounces around inside Vic, comes out behind his collarbone, hits the roof.’

  Cashin took a sip. ‘How many left-handed friends has Vic got?’

  ‘You’re like a cop in a movie. Two we know so far. One’s in Sydney, the other one’s not home. I’ve just been there. There was a moment when I thought we’d get lucky.’

  ‘Gangland hit arrest. Cop hailed.’

  ‘In my dreams.’

  ‘How’s Laurie?’

  ‘Good. The same. Pissed off at me. Well, we’re mutually pissed.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  Villani took a drag, his cheeks hollowed, pulsed out three, four smoke rings, perfect circles rolling in the dead air. ‘Both of us having…affairs.’

  ‘I thought you just looked?’

  ‘Yeah, well, not much joy at home, if I’m not knackered, Laurie is. She’s got all these night functions, the races, corporate catering, sometimes we don’t see each other for days. We don’t talk anymore, haven’t talked for years. Just business, the bills, the kids. Anyway, I met this woman and the next day I actually wanted to see her again.’

  ‘And Laurie?’

  ‘I found out about her little adventure. Don’t leave your mobile account lying around.’

  ‘Cancel out then, don’t they? Two little adventures?’

  ‘It’s a question of who went first, cause and effect. I’m said to be the cause of her rooting this cameraman dickhead. She’s with him now, in Cairns, catering for some moron television shit. Probably on the beach, fucking under a tropical moon.’

  ‘Grown poetic,’ said Cashin. He didn’t want to hear any more, he liked Laurie, he had lusted after her. ‘Is that what being the boss does?’

  Villani poured wine. ‘I just pedal. I’ve got this pommy cunt Wicken on my back, he’s cut out Bell, report directly to him. Don’t understand the politics, don’t fucking want to. I want Singo back, I was happy then.’

  He sighed.

  ‘We were both happy then,’ said Cashin. ‘Happier. I’ll drop in on him in the morning.’

  ‘Shit, I’ve got to get out there, there’s never a fucking minute in the day. Well, what’s with Donny?’

  ‘The lawyer says there’s been harassment, cars keeping the family awake. Why didn’t you tell me about Hopgood?’

  ‘Thought you knew the history of bloody Cromarty. Still, Donny might turn up.’

  ‘Or not,’ said Cashin. ‘And we never had a fucking thing on him. Nothing.’

  Villani shrugged. ‘Yeah, well, we’ll see. Forward, what do you do about your brother?’

  It had been on Cashin’s mind. ‘Failed suicides. I know bugger all about it.’

  ‘Wayne’s alive, failed suicide. Needs to put in more effort. Bruce’s dead. Well done, Bruce. Your brother’s the family success, is he?’

  ‘No,’ Cashin said. ‘He’s just clever and educated. Plus the money.’

  Villani filled the glasses. ‘And the happiness, in spades. Not married?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Someone?’

  ‘No idea. The last time I saw him was when I was in hospital. He didn’t sit down, took a few calls. I don’t blame him, we don’t know each other. Just doing his duty.’

  ‘Sounds like Laurie on me and the family. If he wants a shrink, there’s this bloke Bertrand saw when he went sad after that Croat cunt stabbed him. Not a cop shrink.’

  ‘The Croat’s the one needed the shrink. Bertrand needed a panel-beater.’

  They had shared a life, they talked, smoked, Villani went into the night and came back with another bottle, open. He poured. ‘You think about the job? A person of leisure. Time to think.’

  ‘What else was I good for?’ Cashin was feeling the long drive, the hospital, the drink.

  ‘Anything. You’ve got the brain.’

  ‘Don’t know about that. Anyway, I never thought, I didn’t know what to do, stuffed around, surfed, then I just joined. Lots of fuckwits but…I don’t know. It didn’t feel like a job.’ Cashin drank. ‘Getting introspective, are we?’

  Villani scratched his head. ‘I never felt the worth of it till I got to homicide. The robbers, well, that was full-on excitement, us against the crooks, like a game for big kids. But homicide, that was different. Singo made me feel that. Justice for the dead. He say that to you?’

  Cashin nodded.

  ‘Singo could pick the right people for the squad. He just knew. Birkerts was bloody hopeless at everything but Singo picked him. Bloke’s a star. Now I pick people like Dove. University degree, all chip and no shoulder. Doesn’t want to be black, doesn’t want to be white.’

  ‘He’ll be okay,’ Cashin said. ‘He’s smart.’

  ‘And now,’ said Villani, ‘I’m trying to get justice for drug scumbags got knocked before they could knock some other arseholes. Plus I get lectures on politics and fucking dress sense and applying the right spin. I now know why Singo blew a brain fuse.’

  They drank most of the bottle before Villani said, ‘You’re more knackered than I am. Set the alarm if you want to. I’d have a fucking decent sleep myself.’

  Before bed, Cashin slid open the window, got under the duvet on the narrow bed. The smell of cigarette smoke lingered. He thought of being seventeen, in the room he shared with Bern, lying on their backs in the dark, passing a smoke between the single beds before sleep.

  When he woke, the clock said 8.17 am. He rose, dizzy for a moment. He had slept as if clubbed, felt clubbed now.

  An envelope under the door.

  Joe: Back door key. Eggs and bacon in the fridge.

  Cashin ate breakfast at a small place on Sydney Road. It was either Turkish or Greek. The eggs were served by a wide man with eyes the colour of milk stout.

  ‘I know you,’ he said. ‘You come after they shoot Alex Katsourides next door. You and a small one.’

  ‘That’s a long time ago,’ said Cashin.

  ‘You never catch them.’

  ‘No. Maybe one day.’

  A big sniff. ‘One day. You never catch them. Gangland killers. That bloke on the radio, he says police useless.’

  Cashin felt the blood coming to his face, the heat in his eyes. ‘I’m eating,’ he said. ‘You want to talk to a cop, go down to the station. Where’s the pepper?’

  MICHAEL WAS out of intensive care, in a single room on the floor above. He was awake, pale, darkly stubbled.

  Cashin went to the bed and touched his brother’s shoulder, awkward. ‘Gave us a scare, mate,’ he said.

  ‘Sorry.’ Hoarse, breathless voice.

  ‘Feeling okay?’

  Michael didn’t quite look at him. ‘Terrible,’ he said. ‘I feel like such a creep, wasting people’s time. There are sick people here.’

  Cashin didn’t know where to go. ‘Serious decision you took,’ he said.

  ‘Not actually a decision. It just happened, sort of. I was pretty pissed.’

  ‘You hadn’t been thinking about it?’

  ‘Thinking about it, yes.’ He closed his eyes. ‘I’ve been pretty low.’

  Time went by. Michael seemed to go to sleep. It allowed Cashin to study him, he had never done that. You didn’t usually look at people closely, you looked into their eyes. Animals didn’t stare at each other’s noses or chins, foreheads, hairlines. They looked at the things that gave signals—the eyes, the mouth.

  He was looking when Michael said, eyes closed, ‘Sacked three weeks ago. I was running a big takeover and someone leaked information and the whole thing went pear-shaped. They blamed me.’

  ‘Why?’

  Eyes clo
sed. ‘Photographs of me with someone from the other side. The other firm.’

  ‘What kind?’

  ‘Nothing sordid. Just a kiss. On the steps outside my place.’

  ‘Yes?’

  Michael opened his black eyes, blinked a few times, he had long lashes, turned his head enough to look at Cashin.

  ‘It was a he,’ he said.

  Cashin wanted a smoke, the craving came from nowhere, full strength. It had never entered his mind that Michael was queer. Michael had been engaged to a doctor at one time. Syb had showed him a photograph taken at an engagement party, a thin blonde woman, snub nose. She was holding a champagne flute. She had short nails.

  ‘A kiss?’ he said.

  ‘We were in a meeting late, eleven, we met again in the carpark, he came back to my place for a drink.’

  ‘Sex?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you tell him stuff?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well,’ said Cashin, ‘I’ve heard of worse shit.’

  His brother had closed his eyes again, there were deep furrows between his eyebrows. ‘He killed himself,’ he said. ‘The day after his wife left him, took the three kids. Her father’s a judge, he went to law school with my head of firm.’

  Cashin shut his eyes too, put his head back and listened to the sounds—low electronic humming, the sawing of traffic below, a faraway helicopter whupping the air. He stayed that way for a long time. When he opened his eyes, Michael was looking at him.

  ‘You all right?’ he said.

  ‘Fine,’ said Cashin. ‘That is serious shit.’

  ‘Yes. They told me you were here in the small hours. Thanks, Joe.’

  ‘Not a matter for thanks.’

  ‘I haven’t been much of a brother.’

  ‘Two of us then. Want to talk to someone? A shrink?’

  ‘No. I’ve been to shrinks, I’ve made shrinks rich, I’ve helped shrinks buy places in Byron Bay, there’s nothing they can do. I’m a depressive. Plain and simple. It’s in me. It’s a brain disorder, it’s probably genetic.’

  Cashin felt an unease. ‘Drugs,’ he said. ‘They’ve presumably got the drugs.’

  ‘Turn the world into porridge. If you’re on anti-depressants, you can’t work sixteen-hour days, plough through mountains of documents, see the holes, produce answers. My kind of depression, well, it’s not like the tent collapses on you. It’s just there. I can work, that’s the thing that keeps it at bay, you don’t want an idle moment. But there’s no joy. You could be, I don’t know, washing dishes.’

  Michael was crying silently, tears running down his cheeks, crystal streams on each side.

  Cashin put a hand on his brother’s forearm, he did not squeeze. He did not know what to do, he had no physical language for comforting a man.

  Michael said, ‘They told me about the photograph and Kim’s death at the same time. I walked out, got on a plane, drank and slept and drank, and it got worse and then I took the pills.’

  He tried to smile. ‘I think that’s more than I’ve said to you at one time in our whole lives.’

  A nurse was in the doorway. ‘Keeping up the fluids?’ she said, stern. ‘Important, you know.’

  ‘I’m drinking,’ said Michael. He swallowed. ‘Is it too early for a gin and tonic?’

  She shook her head at his flippancy. Cashin could see she liked the look of Michael. She went away.

  ‘Who took the picture?’ he said.

  A shrug. ‘I don’t know. There was a whole sequence, five or six shots. From across the street, I think.’

  ‘Someone watching you or him. Who’d do that?’

  Another shrug.

  ‘When was the leak? Before or after?’

  Michael put a hand to his hair. ‘You’re a cop. I forgot that for a while. After. In the next day or so. They knew what happened at a meeting our team had the morning after. Anyway, it doesn’t matter now. Kim’s dead, I don’t have a career, everything’s gone, twenty years of grind wasted.’

  ‘Dangerous occupation you chose.’

  Michael remembered. He smiled, a sad smile.

  ‘You’d better come down and stay with Sybil for a while,’ said Cashin. ‘Help the husband napalm the roses.’

  ‘No, I’ll be all right. I’ll stay with a friend, she’s got lots of room. Get back on the medication. Avoid the drink. Exercise, take some exercise. I’ll be okay.’

  Silence.

  ‘I’ll be fine, Joe. Really.’

  ‘What can I do?’ said Cashin.

  ‘Nothing.’ Michael put out his left hand. Cashin took it, they held hands awkwardly.

  ‘Don’t get depressed, do you?’ said Michael.

  ‘No.’ It was a lie.

  ‘Good, that’s good. You’ve escaped the curse of the Cashins.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘Dad, me. Probably a long line before us. Tommy Cashin for sure. Mum says you’re rebuilding his house. We’re all the same, he was just at the extreme edge. Wanted to take his house with him.’

  ‘What about Dad?’

  Michael took his hand away. ‘Mum’s told you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She said she’d tell you when you were older.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘About Dad.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That he committed suicide.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Cashin. ‘That. Yeah, I know about that.’

  ‘Okay. Listen, tell Mum I’m fine, Joe. Tell her it was all a silly mistake. Accidental overdose. Do that?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Give her my love. Tell her I’ll ring her tomorrow. Don’t feel up to it today.’

  Cashin said goodbye, kissed his brother on the forehead, a taste of salt, caught the lift with a family of four, near-adult children, everyone sombre. On the ground floor, he found the toilets, went into a booth and sat down, slumped, hands between his thighs. It was peaceful. From time to time, the urinal cleansed itself, a wash of water.

  He saw himself in the Holden, a boy sitting next to his mother, on the way to strange places, for a reason unknown.

  His father. No one ever told him. They all knew and no one ever told him.

  THE NURSING home was a yellow brick veneer island in a sea of bitumen and concrete, not a blade of grass. A nurse in a dark blue skirt and spotted white shirt showed him to the room.

  Singo was wearing a checked dressing-gown, sitting in a wheelchair in front of a glass door. The view was of a concrete strip and a high metal fence the colour of dried blood.

  ‘Someone to see you, Dave,’ she said. ‘You’ve got a visitor.’

  Singo didn’t react.

  ‘I’ll leave you,’ said the nurse.

  Cashin moved the chair in the room, sat facing Singo’s profile, moved the chair closer. ‘G’day, boss,’ he said. ‘It’s Joe.’

  Singo turned his head. Cashin thought he’d aged since he’d last seen him, the paralysed side of his face now younger than the other.

  Singo made a sound. It could have been ‘Joe’, it was a short sibilant sound.

  ‘Looking much better, boss,’ said Cashin. ‘You’re on the mend. Villani says to please come back. He’ll tell you himself, he’ll be out to see you soon. Snowed under. You’ll know about that.’

  Singo’s lips worked, he made another sound, spitty, but Joe thought he was amused, something in his eyes. He raised his left arm, the working arm, stretched his fingers. He seemed to be offering his hand to be held.

  Not shaken. Held.

  You could not hold Singo’s hand, no. Singo could not possibly want that. He wasn’t brain damaged, not that way, he was hindered, bits of him didn’t work. Singo was in there, the hard man was there under the slack muscle, the disobedient tendons.

  Cashin didn’t know what to do, the second time in two hours.

  Perhaps the hard man wasn’t there anymore. Perhaps there was just a helpless and hopeless man reaching out.

  Cashin thought about his father and he
put out his right hand and touched Singo’s.

  Singo knocked his hand away.

  Not reaching out. A mistake.

  ‘Sorry, boss,’ said Cashin. ‘Water? Want some water? Anything?’

  Singo blinked his left eyelid repeatedly. His eyes were saying something. He released another moist splutter of sound.

  ‘Watching the TV, boss?’ There was a television on the wall, no sign of a remote control. They would decide what he saw and for how long.

  A nod, it could be a nod.

  ‘Villani’s got his hands full, see that?’ said Cashin.

  Singo raised his hand again, the fingers stretched.

  Oh shit, thought Cashin, he’s pointing.

  He looked. There was a pad on the bedside cabinet and a pen, a fat pen. He fetched them, put the pad on Singo’s tray, offered the pen to the left hand. Singo took it, clumsily, shakily, moved it in his big fingers.

  ‘Why didn’t she tell me you could write, boss? The nurse?’

  Singo was trying to write on the pad, he was concentrating, the pen would not obey him, the pad shifted, veins stood out on his forehead,

  Cashin reached out and moored the pad. Singo made scratch marks on it, possibly a C, possibly an R, a scribble of lines. His strength seemed to leave him, the hand slumped, his eyes closed.

  Cashin waited.

  Singo was asleep.

  Cashin stood up and went to the door. He turned and said, not loud, ‘Be back, boss. We’re on your case. Get you out of here.’

  He could see Singo reflected in the glass door and he thought he saw his eyes looking at him. He went back. Singo’s eyes were closed. He moved the pad from under the big hand, long hairs on the fingers, and tore off the page.

  ‘See you, boss,’ he said, took his life in his hands and said, ‘Love you.’

  He sat in the vehicle for a while before he switched on, trying to make sense of Singo’s marks. Then he put on music, shut his mind against the hours ahead, drove. Near home, exhausted, pains down both legs, the mobile rang.

  ‘Found someone,’ said Hopgood. ‘Want to be there?’

  CASHIN WALKED down the pier in the last light, stood behind the half-dozen watchers, cold salt westerly gale in his face. He saw the cat heel around the breakwater, stern down, twin engines howling. A man in yellow was at the wheel, two figures behind him, standing, dark wetsuits.