Pride's Harvest

by Jon Cleary

  Malone looked at Sagawa again. He had seen pictures of young Japanese swingers wearing their hair like this: shoulder-length, blow-waved. But they would probably have been half Sagawa’s age, rock musicians or in television, maybe a sanitized Tokyo chapter of Hell’s Angels; but they would not have been cotton gin managers, field technocrats. Sagawa was not at all what the two detectives had imagined him to be; not that that mattered, either. He still was dead, murdered, blow-waved or short-back-and-sides.

  Malone handed back the photo. “Was he a good family man?”

  The three older Japanese looked at each other at the question. Then Yoshida, who had been silent up till now, said, “His wife never complained.”

  “Do your employees’ wives complain to the company if their husbands are not good family men?”

  “No. It is not our custom. Do Australian wives complain like that?”

  “No, Australian wives handle things like that in their own way.”

  “How?”

  “Sometimes they shoot them,” said Clements, the bachelor.

  The senior men looked at each other, glad that Japanese wives were better behaved than that.

  Then Malone said casually, as if he had only just thought of it, “Did you know Mr. Sagawa’s father was executed as a war criminal?”

  There was a long silence. The timbers of the house creaked as the warmth of the day went out of them in the gathering dusk. The veranda faced east and the house’s fading shadow stretched away to take the colour out of the garden. A crow went overhead, heading home, its croak scratching the silence. When Tajiri spoke, his voice, too, sounded like a croak.

  “Yes, we knew. I served under Major Nibote in Burma, before he was invalided back to take charge of a prisoner-of-war camp. I was a very junior officer and he saved my life in action.”

  “So you sponsored his son as a sort of repayment for that?”

  “It was a debt, Inspector. What we call giri.”

  “Did Sagawa know what his father had been and how he died?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he ever discuss it with you?”

  “I would never have allowed it.”

  Malone glanced at Koga. “Did he ever mention it to you, Mr. Koga?”

  It was plain from the look on Koga’s face that the revelation of Sagawa’s father’s execution was a shock. “Never.”

  Malone turned back to Tajiri. “Sagawa was killed in the service of your company, Mr. Tajiri. He would probably still be alive if he had not been sent here. Do you have a debt to his children?”

  The three younger Japanese did not look at their company president; but Malone felt they were as interested in the answer as he himself was. Perhaps they had their own idea of what corporate debt was. Tajiri stared at Malone, looked away for a moment, then back at the detective.

  “We shall take care of his family, Inspector. Just find his murderer.”

  “You want him found?”

  That shook Tajiri; his head reared back a little as if Malone had shoved something under his nose. “Of course, Inspector. Why not?”

  “Indeed,” said Malone, as formal as the four Japanese, “why not?”

  Clements, lounging on the veranda rail, as informal as a pub drinker except for the lack of a singlet and a pair of thongs, said, “There’s one thing, Mr. Koga. I’ve been through everything Sergeant Baldock took into the station from Mr. Sagawa’s desk. There’s no sign of a business diary.”

  Malone loved Clements’s little surprises, even if they were sometimes a surprise to himself. He always left the “murder box” and its contents of general evidence to Clements: the big man was sometimes a magician in what he could produce from it.

  Koga said, “I noticed it was missing the day after Mr. Sagawa was murdered. I looked for it to see if he had made any appointments that I would have to keep for him. When it wasn’t there, I assumed Sergeant Baldock had taken it along with everything else.”

  “What sort of diary did he keep?” Koga frowned and Clements went on, “I mean, was it a meticulous one? You know, detailed entries for every day?”

  “Oh very. Mr. Sagawa was a most meticulous person.” The young man looked over his shoulder at his three superiors; Malone wondered if he was laying it on for their benefit. “He would not only write down his appointments, but later would enter up his remarks on what had taken place. It was the basis for his monthly report.”

  Clements looked at Malone. “It looks as if the killer came back afterwards and pinched the diary. That means the chances are whoever killed him came to see him on business, otherwise his name wouldn’t be in the diary.”

  Malone nodded; then turned to Koga. “Test your memory, Mr. Koga. Write down the names of everyone who came to see Mr. Sagawa the week before he died. Take your time, but I’d like it by tomorrow morning.” Then he glanced at Tajiri. “You wanted to say something, Mr. Tajiri?”

  “If—when you catch the murderer, what will happen to him? Will he be hanged or electrocuted or what?”

  “We don’t have capital punishment in this country, Mr. Tajiri. Sorry.”

  Tajiri made a small deprecating gesture with his hand. “Civilization has many modes. Major Nibote would be interested if he knew that his son’s murderer would not be executed.”

  “Yes,” said Malone, wishing he had a more telling answer. Then he said, “I don’t notice any security men around here today. You’re not afraid the killer will come back?”

  All four Japanese looked at each other; then Tajiri looked back at Malone. “The thought had occurred to us, Inspector.” If it had, they had made a good job of concealing the thought. If Tokyo cops had to put up with Oriental inscrutability, Malone didn’t envy them their job. “But we don’t want to turn the cotton farm into an armed camp.”

  “I’ll suggest to Inspector Narvo that he post a man out here, three of them doing eight-hour shifts.”

  “Will that be popular with the townspeople? I understand the feeling . . .” His voice tapered off.

  “The police have to do a lot of things that aren’t popular with the voters, Mr. Tajiri.” He stepped off the veranda and Clements followed him. “Incidentally—” He paused. “Just on sixty per cent of the people in this State are in favour of capital punishment. If that’s any satisfaction to you.”

  “Not really, Inspector,” said Tajiri, his face a blank page. “But perhaps we are all much more alike than we think.”

  6

  I

  THE CUP ball was held in the only building at the showground. It stood just outside the showground itself, an iron-roofed, timber-walled structure that had begun life a hundred years ago as a woolshed, been added to and renovated and now was an all-purpose building. It served as a home crafts’ pavilion for the annual Collamundra show; as the occasional display showroom for agricultural equipment salesmen; and as the venue for the monthly dances and the annual Cup ball. It was two hundred feet long and a hundred feet wide and tonight it was overflowing, despite the fact that a second dance floor had been laid outdoors on a hard, dusty patch between the hall and the carnival inside the showground proper. A six-piece band, Five Drovers and Their Dog, were belting out their version of “Lola,” while over at the carnival the horses on the merry-go-round were still waltzing to “The Sidewalks of New York.” The circus elephants trumpeted; a lion roared, carnival spruikers shouted; young bucks, already well liquored, yahooed; girls screamed with delight and fake resistance as their panties came down ahead of schedule. Bedlam on the Noongulli: It’s so restful out here, Lisa had said. Out in the scrub and timber the night-birds gave up and fled, wondering if the world had gone mad.

  “I thought they might’ve called off the ball,” said Malone. “Because of what happened this afternoon.”

  “It was too late. Anyway, the proceeds are for the local hospital,” said Hugh Narvo. “It’ll need the money. It’s full up right now. There are seven injured jockeys in there.”

  He and Malone, each with a beer glass in hand, w
ere standing outside the hall, out of the stream of guests coming and going between the outdoor dance floor, the hall and the portable toilets fifty yards away on the edge of the scrub. Narvo, like most of the men, even the young ones, was in black tie and dinner jacket; though the young men, by now, had taken off their jackets and piled them in a heap in the back of a nearby utility truck. Malone was in the only suit he had brought with him from Sydney, but he was not alone in being less than formally dressed; there were other men in shirt-sleeves and neatly pressed moleskins and elastic-sided boots. Still, conservatism ruled: all the men, no matter what their outer dress, wore ties. At least for now.

  “There’s another thing, Scobie,” Narvo went on. He seemed more relaxed than at any time since Malone had met him; as if he had crossed some sort of sand-bar and, out amongst the waves, had found he didn’t mind them at all. “This is not going to be a good year for people on the land.”

  “It’s not looking good for a lot of people in the city, either.”

  “I guess so.” But Narvo sounded unconcerned for the city folk. “Wool prices are down, wheat’s down, interest rates are still up. If the farmers don’t make money, the town doesn’t. Things are going to get worse before they get better and everybody knows it now. Some of these people here tonight may be broke before the end of the year. This ball may be their last chance to kick over the traces. Nobody was going to cancel it.”

  Malone looked around him. He rarely, if ever, went to a ball in the city; he had certainly never been to a country ball. He had heard how wild and woolly they could be; country folk worked harder and played harder than their city cousins. It was still relatively early, but the pitch and volume were rising; yet he could see no sign of desperate reaching for pleasure, of dancing while the bushfires raged. Not yet, anyway.

  “What about cotton? Is that still selling?”

  “Yes. But there’s only the South Cloud farm and gin and they’re not going to let anyone else in here. They’re owned by the Japanese.”

  “Not all of it. There’s a forty per cent local holding.”

  Narvo paused as he was about to take another mouthful of beer. “You’ve got your facts.”

  “I’m learning a few. If cotton prices are going to hold up, now’d be the time to buy into South Cloud, wouldn’t it? Killing Sagawa would be a start to making the Japanese feel they weren’t wanted.”

  Narvo said, and it sounded admiring, “You have imagination.”

  “Ten or twelve years in Homicide and you have it, it sort of comes naturally. It helps to be part- Irish,” he grinned, and sipped his own beer, not particularly liking it. Under Lisa’s tutelage he had developed a taste for European and even homegrown boutique beers, but he would not dare mention that out here, where it would be looked upon as a treasonable affectation. They might even think he was gay and run him out of town. “You don’t think anyone killed Sagawa for that reason?”

  “That would narrow the list of suspects, wouldn’t it?”

  “There’s something else that might narrow the list of suspects. Sagawa’s father was executed as a war criminal. Some ex-POW might have heard of that and decided on his own extended revenge. Are there any ex-POWs around here?”

  “None that I know of.” Narvo showed no interest in what Sagawa’s father had been. “Ray Chakiros would be the man to ask. He knows the war record of everyone back to the Duke of Wellington.”

  “Was Chakiros at Waterloo?”

  “You’d think so, to hear him talk.” Then a pleasant-looking blonde woman came out of the hall and put her arm in his. “You haven’t met my wife Monica.”

  “Are you two talking police business?” she said.

  Malone shook hands with her, liking her friendly smile. “No. I’ve been admiring the way everyone dresses up out here. The races this afternoon, the ball.”

  Monica Narvo looked down at her green evening dress with flounces that camouflaged her tendency towards plumpness. She had a practical air to her and he could imagine her making the dress, baking cakes for the ball supper, running the rock-solid sort of house that a policeman wished for.

  “This is last year’s dress. I’m not expected to keep up appearances, not like some of them around here.” She said it seemingly without malice; but Malone wasn’t sure. “Amanda Nothling, for instance. If she wore the same frock twice to a ball or a dance, everyone would wonder if she was short of money.”

  “She and Amanda are the best of friends,” said Narvo, winking at Malone. “There she is out there, dancing with her son. What’s she wearing this year, Monny?”

  “It’s a Chanel by Karl Lagerfeld.”

  “I thought it was,” said Narvo, straight-faced.

  Malone looked at him first: this wasn’t a Narvo he had met before. Then he looked towards the dance floor, saw Amanda Nothling, brilliant in a shimmering silver sheath, dancing with a boy of about sixteen who already was turning into an image of his father: thick unruly hair, red-faced, running to fat. On an impulse he said, “Does she dance with out-of-towners?”

  “If you genuflect first,” said Narvo and spluttered into his beer as his wife dug him in the ribs.

  As he walked away from them, Malone noticed that Monica Narvo was questioning her husband. She, too, had evidently noticed the change in him.

  Malone tapped the Nothling boy on the arm as he stepped up on to the raised dance floor. “May I cut in and dance with your mother?”

  The boy, relieved, relinquished his hold on her: it was embarrassing, having to dance with your own mother. “Sure, sure, she’s all yours. Thanks, Mum.” And was gone.

  “I hope you don’t mind me cutting in?”

  “I don’t mind, Inspector, so long as this isn’t going to be an interrogation.” She was charming enough now, insinuating her body into his without being provocative. “You dance well. Somehow one expects policemen to be heavy-footed.”

  “No, just heavy-handed. I haven’t seen your husband this evening.”

  “Is that why you asked me to dance?” She didn’t act coyly annoyed. This woman was as sophisticated as any he had met, there were no grass seeds in her immaculately done hair.

  He smiled: he was no nightclub smoothie, but he could try. “You know better than that, Mrs. Nothling.”

  She smiled back, accepting him. “Max will be along. He’s busy at the hospital. Some emergency ops on those jockeys who were injured this afternoon. I thought you handled those stupid blacks very well. Very dramatic, firing your gun like that. No one expected it.”

  “I thought there was a lot of shooting around here, that they’d be used to it.”

  She leaned away from him, but only from the waist; her pelvis remained against his. But she was not being provocative. She had her father’s pale-blue eyes and, like his, they could turn to marble. “What does that mean?”

  “Nothing,” he said innocently. “Do you want us to dance apart, like everyone is?”

  “I don’t do what everyone else does.” She eased back into his arms. They were both good dancers and they found their own rhythm to the beat of the music. “Are you wearing your gun tonight?”

  He wondered if she was going to crack the old Mae West joke; and was glad when she didn’t. “No, not tonight . . . Nobody seems upset about the shooting of Mr. Sagawa.”

  He had remarked that, so far, no one at the ball appeared to have brought with them the resentment that he and Clements had experienced during their two days in town. Perhaps an unspoken moratorium had been declared, but only for tonight.

  She stiffened again in his arms, but only slightly. “He—he was an outsider. The feeling would have been different if he had been a local.”

  “I’ve gathered that, from a few others. How did you get on with him?”

  “I told you I should only dance with you if it didn’t turn into an interrogation. Enough, Inspector . . .” He waited for her to slide out of his arms; but she didn’t. “Does your wife mind you dancing with strangers?”

  “Not so lon
g as they’re women. Why?”

  “She’s just come out of the hall with Ida Waring and your detective friend. She’s very attractive. You’re a lucky man.”

  “I know.”

  “She’s looking daggers at either you or me. Is she jealous?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never given her any cause to be.”

  “Oh my, ain’t we goody-goody! Faithful husbands—the conservationists should be looking into them, they’re a dying species. I’m as jealous as hell.” Then she seemed to regret the admission, because she smiled and said, “I’m joking. Jealousy never gets you anywhere, does it?”

  He couldn’t imagine her being jealous of the half-drunk slob she was married to; but maybe Nothling hadn’t always been like that. “No, not in the end.”

  “Are you speaking as a policeman or a marriage counsellor?”

  “Both.”

  They smiled at each other and for a moment their bodies melded together like lovers’. Then the music ended and he let her go. Only then did he say, trying his best not to sound like an interrogator, “Your father isn’t here. Isn’t he chairman of the ball committee?”

  “You mean besides being chairman of everything else?” There was an edge to her smile, like a knife turned to the light.

  He smiled, too, but with no edge. “Yes, I guess I do.”

  “No, he’s not on the committee at all. I’m chairwoman—one Hardstaff is enough for any committee . . . My father is at home, he’s entertaining some Japanese who arrived today. He doesn’t like these sort of shindigs—they aren’t decorous enough for him. He doesn’t understand young people.”

  “Wasn’t he ever young himself?” Like sixteen or seventeen and running Commos out of their home town with guns: very decorous.

  “Oh yes. From what I’ve heard he was the wildest boy in the district. But we all change when we grow older, don’t we?”

  “Were you wild when you were young?”

  She smiled, took the hand he offered her as she stepped down off the dance floor. “I still am, occasionally.”

  “But never in Collamundra?”

  “No, never in Collamundra. Thank you, Mr. Malone. Enjoy your stay.”