by Peter Temple
Pub fight shit, thought Cashin, no answer would defuse it. He looked at Pascoe. ‘Listen, if your mate here’s in charge, I’m gone.’
‘So piss off,’ said Stevo.
Pascoe didn’t look around. ‘Settle down, Stevo,’ he said, a briskness to his tone.
‘Settle down? Don’t you fuckin tell me to settle down, where the fuck you…’
Pascoe shoved his chair back, took Stevo by surprise, knocked him off balance. He was upright in one quick movement and walking Stevo backwards, barrel chest bumping, three steps, pinned him against the bar. In his face, their chins touching, Pascoe said something to Stevo, Cashin couldn’t catch it.
Stevo raised his hands. Pascoe stepped back, gestured. Stevo went behind the bar, leaned on it, didn’t look at them. Pascoe went back to his chair, drank some beer.
‘What I’ll say is this,’ he said as if nothing had happened. ‘What I’ll say is Corey coulda got the watch in a trade like, y’know.’
‘For what?’ said Cashin.
‘Jeez, how’d I know? What do you reckon?’
‘So who’d be on the other side?’
‘Big ask, mate.’
‘That’s useful. Got any other stuff you’d like to tell me? Other people don’t like me? How about Steggles? Wall ears hear anything about Steggie?’
‘Dead man walkin. The fuckin prick.’
‘Do it myself,’ said Stevo, slurring. ‘Fuckin tonight. Blow the cunt away.’
‘Shut up, Stevo,’ said Pascoe. ‘Just fuckin shut up.’
Cashin took a can, ripped the top. He glanced at Helen. She had the air of someone watching a blood sport, lips parted, smears of colour on her cheekbones.
‘Listen,’ said Cashin. ‘You want something, tell me quick, I’m thinking about food now. I eat around this time of the day, the night.’
‘Corey done some stupid stuff, will of his own,’ said Pascoe. ‘Couldn’t tell him a fuckin thing, just go his own way.’
Cashin said, ‘This’s dope you’re talkin about?’
Pascoe waved a big hand. ‘People grow a bit of weed, make a few bucks. No work around here.’
‘So what did he do?’
‘Well, y’know, there’s ways of doin business. I’m not talkin fuckin truckloads, you understand, just beer money. Anyway, I hear Corey did these private deals, him and Luke, he’s another kid wouldn’t listen, bugger all respect.’
Pascoe offered the cigarettes. Cashin took one, the lighter, lit up, blew smoke at the roof, his instinct told him to make the leap. ‘Piggots,’ he said. ‘This is Piggots?’
Pascoe looked at Helen, looked at Cashin. ‘Not all asleep in Port, are you? Yeah, Piggots. They got ambitions, the fuckin Piggots, such dickheads but they reckon they’re headin for the big time, they’re gonna be players.’
‘Fuckin Piggots,’ said Stevo. He had a Jim Beam bottle in his hand now. ‘Blow the cunts away. White fuckin maggots.’
‘Stevo,’ said Pascoe. ‘Shut the fuck up. Watch TV. Find the fuckin cartoons.’
Helen said, ‘Chris, correct me, you’re saying Corey traded for the watch with the Piggots?’
‘That’s, that’s possible, yeah.’
‘Tell me how the Piggots got the watch,’ said Helen.
Pascoe was looking at Cashin. ‘Can you imagine?’ he said. ‘These Pigs got the idea this shit’s easier than poachin abalone. Don’t even want to grow it themselves, don’t want to move it. All reward and no risk.’
‘That’s very ambitious,’ said Cashin.
‘My fuckin oath. And I hear they got someone to do a cook for em, too. This bloke, he’s like a travellin speed cook.’
‘Is that right?’
‘Shouldn’t be allowed, should it?’
‘No.’
Pascoe leaned forward, put his face as close to Cashin’s as he could. ‘Can’t expect fuckin Hopgood and the local boys to do anythin, can you? Be unreasonable since Hoppy’s got a share in the horse. Whole leg, I hear.’
‘Something’ll have to be done about that,’ said Cashin.
‘Fuckin right.’ He sat back. ‘Hearin me.’
Cashin nodded. ‘Hearing you.’
Helen coughed. ‘About how the Piggots got the watch,’ she said. ‘Can we get on to that?’
Cashin thought that he knew the answer, delivered to him by some process in the brain that endlessly sifted, sorted and shuffled things heard and read, seen and felt, bits and pieces with no obvious use, just clutter, litter, until the moment when two of them touched, spun and found each other, fitted like hands locking.
‘Ray Piggot,’ he said.
‘You’re so fuckin quick,’ said Pascoe. ‘Yeah, the bumboy. That’s what I hear.’
The complaint against Ray Piggot. Hopgood and Steggles at the station, Ray in the car outside. Ray who looked all of fourteen.
‘Ray Piggot stole the watch from Bourgoyne?’ said Helen, uncertainly.
‘Well, wouldn’t have been a present.’
‘I don’t understand what’s going on here,’ said Helen. ‘Who’s Ray Piggot? Am I just…’
Cashin said, ‘So to clear this up, we’re not talking about Ray and a burg?’
Pascoe laughed. ‘Hopgood woulda dropped him off up there for old Charlie Bourgoyne. This cunt Ray knew what he was in for but he’s not the first kid been fed to Charlie and his mates. That’s one of Hoppy’s jobs. That’s the way it’s always been.’
THEY DROVE in silence to the forecourt of the service station where Cashin had parked. ‘Thank you,’ he said, made to go.
‘Wait.’
There were no cars at the pumps. The windows of the small cashier’s cabin were steamed up by breath.
‘I need some things explained to me,’ said Helen. ‘What the hell was going on there?’
Cashin thought about what to say to her. She had no further part to play in this shit, she didn’t have a client. ‘Pascoe’s growing,’ he said. ‘Also, he delivers, he does the tightarse run. The Piggots get other people to grow, make tablets, deliver. Pascoe says Hopgood and the mates are in it, building up their super.’
‘Why’s Pascoe telling you?’
‘He wants me to take care of the Piggots. For telling me how the boys got the watch.’
‘This is another watch, an earlier one?’
‘That’s right. Different model.’
‘So it was a stuff-up from the beginning?’
‘It was.’
‘And you believe the story about this Ray Piggot?’
Cashin looked at her. A car turned in and the headlights splashed her face and he felt again the full sad stupidity of teenage lust for someone beyond reach. ‘Ray’s a quickpick,’ he said. ‘Rips off the punters if he can.’
‘A quickpick?’
‘Drivethrough, a hitchhiker. One size fits all.’
‘Joe, I was in corporate law until a year ago.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing left for you to do. Just a mess for us to clean up. Of our own making.’
‘Joe.’
‘What?’
‘Give me a break. You wouldn’t know what you know if I hadn’t pushed you to see Pascoe. Pascoe says Hopgood delivered Ray Piggot to Bourgoyne. And other boys. Nobody’s ever said this about Bourgoyne.’
‘In your circle.’
‘What’s that mean? In my circle?’
‘Maybe you Bayview Drive people don’t talk about stuff like that. Too vulgar.’
Helen tapped second knuckles of both hands on the steering wheel. ‘Not rising to that bait,’ she said, a pause between each word.
‘Got to go,’ said Cashin. ‘I’ll get back to you.’
It was cold and damp outside, a sea mist. He ducked his head to say thanks.
‘Are you often in pain?’ said Helen.
‘No.’
‘Well, you fooled me. Anyway, I’m in the house, we’re neighbours. Care to stop off for a drink? I can microwave some party pies. I gather people in your circl
e enjoy them.’
He was going to say, no thank you, I’ll give that a miss, but he looked into her eyes. ‘I’ll follow you,’ he said.
‘No,’ she said, ‘you go first. You know the road better.’
The driveway to the Corrigan house ran between old elms, many dead. It was newly graded, the earth white in the headlights. Cashin parked to the left of the homestead gate and switched off. Helen parked beside him. He got out, uneasy. The moving sky opened and a full moon appeared in the wedge, lit the world pale grey. They went down the long path in silence, climbed new timber steps to the front door.
‘I’m still a bit spooked out here,’ she said. ‘The dark. The silence. It may be a mistake.’
‘Get a dog,’ said Cashin. ‘And a gun.’
They went down a passage. She clicked lights, revealed a big empty room, two or three of the old house’s rooms knocked into one, a new floor laid. There were two chairs and a low table.
‘I haven’t got around to furniture yet,’ said Helen. ‘Or unpacked the books.’
He followed her into a kitchen.
‘Stove, fridge, microwave,’ she said. ‘It’s your basic bed-and-breakfast establishment. No personality.’
‘Party pies are just right then,’ said Cashin. ‘Very little personality in a party pie.’
Helen hooked her thumbs in her coat pockets. She lifted her chin. Cashin saw the tendons in her throat. He could feel his heartbeat.
‘Hungry?’ she said.
‘Your eyes,’ said Cashin. ‘Did you inherit that?’
‘My grandmother had different coloured eyes.’ She half-turned from him. ‘You were a person of interest at school. I like that term. Person of interest.’
‘That’s a lie. You never noticed me.’
‘You looked so hostile. Glowering. You still glower. Something sexy about a glower.’
‘How do you glower?’
‘Don’t question your gift.’ Helen crossed the space and took his head in her hands, kissed him, drew back. ‘Not too responsive,’ she said. ‘Are cops intimate on the first date?’
Cashin put his hands inside her coat, held her, inhaled her smell, felt her ribs. She was thinner than he expected. He shivered. ‘Cops generally don’t have second dates.’
There was a long moment.
Helen took Cashin’s right hand, kissed it, kissed his lips, led him.
In the night, he awoke, sensed that she was awake.
‘Do you still ride?’ he said.
‘No. I had a bad fall, lost my nerve.’
‘I thought the idea was to get on again.’
She touched him. ‘Is that a suggestion?’
THE HOUSE could be seen from a long way, the front door dead centre at the end of a drive of pencil pines. As Cashin drove, the weak western sunlight flicked unnervingly through the trees.
A thin, lined woman wearing a dark tracksuit answered his knocks. Cashin said the words, offered the ID.
‘Round the back,’ she said. ‘In the shed.’
He walked on the concrete apron. The place had the air of a low-security prison—the fence around the compound, the building freshly painted, the watermelon scent of newly mown grass in the air. No trees, no flowers, no weeds.
The shed, big enough for a few light aircraft, had an open sliding door on the north side. A man appeared in it when Cashin was ten metres away.
‘Mr Starkey?’ said Cashin.
‘Yeah?’
He was wearing clean blue overalls over a checked shirt, a huge man, fat but hard looking, head the shape and colour of a scrubbed potato.
‘Detective Senior Sergeant Cashin. Can we talk?’
‘Yeah.’ He turned and went inside.
Cashin followed him. Mrs Starkey’s kitchen would be this clean and neat, he thought. Power tools in racks. Two long benches with galvanised iron tops shone under the fluorescent light. Behind them pegboards held tools—spanners, wrenches, pliers, metal snips, hacksaws, steel rulers, clamps, calipers—arranged by size in laser-straight rows. There was a big metal lathe and a tiny one, a drill stand, two bench grinders, a power hacksaw, a stand with slots and holes for files and punches and other things.
In the centre of the space, under chain hoists, four old engines in stages of disassembly stood on square steel tables.
A tall thin youth, dressed like Starkey, was at a vice, filing at something. He glanced at Cashin, looked down at the work, a lock of hair falling.
‘Go talk to yer mum, Tay,’ said Starkey.
Tay had an oily cloth in his back pocket. He took it out and carefully wiped the bench, went over to a stand, wiped his file and put it in its place.
He went without looking at Cashin again. Cashin watched him go. He held one shoulder lower than the other, walked with it leading in a crab-like way.
‘Working on these engines,’ said Cashin.
‘Yeah,’ said Starkey. His eyes were slits. ‘Bourgoyne & Cromie engines. What can I do for you?’
‘You fix them?’
‘Restore em. Best ever made. What?’
Cashin realised there was nowhere to sit. ‘The watch Mr Bourgoyne was wearing,’ he said. ‘Can you identify it?’
‘Yeah, I reckon.’
Cashin took out a colour copy of the brochure, folded to show only the watch with the plain white face, three small dials.
‘Yeah, that’s it,’ Starkey said.
‘He was wearing that watch that day?’
‘Wore it every day.’
‘Thanks. Just a few other questions.’
‘What’s the problem? Daunt coons bashed him.’ Impassive face, grey marble eyes.
‘We’re not sure of that.’
‘Yeah? That fuckin little Coulter took the Kettle dive to have a swim? Guilty as shit.’
Starkey walked to the door and spat, wiped his lips, came back, planted himself, questioning head angle.
‘At home that night?’ said Cashin. ‘You and Tay?’
Starkey’s eyes narrowed, full of threat. ‘Answered that question already. What’s your fuckin problem?’
‘Come down to the station,’ said Cashin. ‘The two of you. Bring the toothbrushes, just in case.’
Starkey exercised his jaw, up and down, back and forth.
‘Know a cop called Hopgood?’ he said. ‘I know him. Mate.’
Cashin took out his mobile, held it out. ‘Ring him,’ he said.
‘In my own fuckin time.’
‘Want me to ring him? I’ll ring him for you.’
Starkey put his hands in his pockets. ‘We was at home, ask her. Don’t go out at night much. Just footy stuff.’
‘Still working at The Heights?’
‘Till it’s sold, yeah.’
‘Well-paid job, The Heights.’
‘That right?’
‘About four times what your gardener gets around here. Five, maybe.’
‘Two of us.’
‘Twice as much then.’
‘Twice as much fuckin work as anywhere else.’
‘You drove him around too.’
Starkey put a huge hand to his neck. ‘Didn’t drive him around. Took him to the bank, to the city. He didn’t like to drive anymore.’
‘Know someone called Arthur Pollard?’
‘No.’
‘Know this man?’ He showed him the full-face mugshot of Pollard, watched his eyes.
‘No.’
Cashin considered where to go, took the soft route. ‘Mr Starkey, I’ll tell you we don’t think the Daunt boys attacked Mr Bourgoyne. So if you can tell me anything you saw or heard, any feeling you might have…’
‘You don’t think?’
‘No.’
‘Why?’
‘Some things don’t add up.’
‘Charged that Coulter, didn’t ya?’
‘We thought he was involved, it was a holding action.’
‘What’s that mean?’
‘What did you think when you heard about it?’
&nb
sp; There was an instant, something in Starkey’s muddy eyes. ‘Well, shock, that’s it, yeah.’
‘That’s all?’
‘What else? Don’t happen around here that kind of thing, does it?’
‘Did you like him?’
‘He was all right. Yeah. Not likely to be mates, were we, him and me?’
‘Who could want to harm him?’
‘Apart from thievin scum?’
‘Yes.’
‘No idea.’
‘Had any visitors recently, Mr Bourgoyne? Apart from the stepdaughter?’
‘Nah. Not that I saw.’
‘What about burglaries at The Heights before this happened?’
‘Not in my time. Had some horses pinched once. They cut the wire, pinched three horses from the bottom paddock. You’d have the records, wouldn’t ya?’
‘If it was reported.’
‘Why wouldn’t it be reported?’
‘Crake. How’d you get on with him?’
Starkey shrugged. ‘Okay. Had his ways he wanted things done. I did em that way.’
‘He helped Bourgoyne with the kiln, didn’t he?’
‘Can’t remember that well.’
‘You worked at the Companions camp.’
Starkey scratched his head again, an uncertain look, averted his eyes. ‘Long time ago,’ he said.
‘So you knew Crake from the camp?’
‘Yeah. He was the boss.’
‘What was your job?’
‘Maintenance. Bit of footy coaching. Showed the kids the ropes.’
‘There on the night of the fire?’
The big hands were expressive now. ‘Nah. At the pub in Port.’
‘Tell me about driving him to the city. Where’d you go?’
‘The flat in Relly Street. He took taxis from there.’
‘Stay over?’
‘Hotel in St Kilda. Gedding’s Hotel.’
Cashin went over to the engines. ‘This one a generator?’ he said.
‘Made in ′56. Better than anything you can buy today.’
‘How much ground you got here?’
‘Thirty acres.’
‘Farm it?’
‘Nah. Put the house in the middle of the block. Didn’t wanna hear neighbours. Now the one bastard’s complaining about the engines.’