Man at the Window

by Robert Jeffreys

  ‘Did you pick something up from Captain Edmund’s room?’

  His eyes shut and the gears moved his head up and down.

  ‘I want you to hide it. You must never mention it to anyone. Do you understand?’

  The gears moved, his eyes shut.

  ‘No one is going to hurt you again. You’re a good boy, never think any different. Do you understand?’ The gears worked quickly, thankfully. ‘Now run to class. If anyone says anything tell them you were speaking to me.’

  The boy ran, his face aching with a wide smile, eyes streaming. He couldn’t wipe them quickly enough. The sleeve of his jacket was sodden but his eyes were clear when he entered the classroom. He was told he was late. He apologised and said the boy’s name, and that he was speaking to him. The teacher told him to run faster next time and hoped that Carmody was able to talk some sense into him. When the boy replied that he had done, the teacher said in that case then he didn’t mind the boy being late. This was met with a murmur of approval from the class. The boy sat, feeling inquisitive eyes on him. Carmody was a king and he’d said he would never be hurt again. This caused rapid breathing that pushed the smile back to his face. He fought it. He was a good boy. Thank you, dear God. He knew Carmody would speak to him again one day, and he’d spend every second up to that meeting proving that Carmody was correct. He was a good boy.

  The jumping of his heart told him: you can start again.

  Thirty-one

  Day 11

  Fremantle Train Station

  8.50 a.m. Wednesday, 4th November 1965

  Mr and Mrs Doney’s son, their only child, died in a single-car accident the previous year at Wongon Hills. Now they lived in an apartment in Forrest Street, Cottesloe, waiting for the settlement of the sale of their farm. Senior Constable Young, who’d compiled the initial report for the traffic branch, had, earlier in the year, transferred to the Fremantle branch. Cardilini organised an appointment with him for 9 a.m. at the Fremantle train station.

  This suburban train station appeared a poor cousin to Perth Central. The government architect had included design char­acteristics of the period in the stone portico and red brick buildings, however, its size suggested little future growth for Fremantle Port.

  Cardilini waited for Senior Constable Young to come from the platform. When the timber carriages rattled away, Young, a tall, angular man with short, greying hair, walked towards him.

  ‘We had some idiot steal a conductor’s bag and machine,’ the constable said by way of excuse for the location of the meeting. Then, ‘Aren’t you suspended?’

  Cardilini had crossed paths with Young on a number of occasions, usually at crime scenes, and he knew him to be a tough but honest copper.

  ‘No, on leave, just tying up a few loose ends.’

  ‘Funny thing to be doing on leave.’

  ‘Yeah. Hilarious. You remember the accident?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You knew the boy?’

  ‘I knew of the boy.’

  ‘You’ve seen a few accidents. Was it suicide?’

  Young shook his head and said sarcastically, ‘Why don’t you get straight to the point, Cardilini?’

  ‘Well, was it suicide?’ Cardilini persisted.

  ‘Who’ll ever know?’ Young was evasive. ‘He could have fallen asleep.’

  ‘Do you think he did?’

  Young looked to the sky and pursed his lips. ‘Highly unlikely.’

  ‘Did he accelerate into the tree?’ Cardilini asked.

  Young looked to Cardilini as if assessing him and asked, ‘You read the report?’

  ‘It wasn’t mentioned.’

  ‘That’s right, and you know why?’ Young asked.

  ‘I’m not going to ask you to change your report,’ Cardilini reassured.

  ‘I’ve heard that before.’

  ‘No one will know of this conversation,’ Cardilini said.

  ‘Don’t shit me, Cardilini. If this didn’t matter, you wouldn’t be asking and you’d be glued to a cold beer somewhere.’

  ‘Stop being a hard bastard. What did you see?’

  Young scratched his cheek then said, ‘I think he lined the tree up from five hundred yards away and powered into it as fast as that jalopy would go. The bloody thing disintegrated around him. I don’t know how the traffic boys handle it.’

  ‘Me neither.’

  ‘I’ll say you’re lying if you try to use that,’ Young warned, staring straight at Cardilini.

  ‘Fair enough. Thanks, Young.’

  ‘What for?’

  Cottesloe

  3.30 p.m. Wednesday, 4th November 1965

  Norfolk pine trees grew high on both sides of Forrest Street between Broome Street and Marine Parade. The Doney apartment was halfway down on the right. A double-storey, red brick block of four apartments, two up, two down. The Doneys lived on the second storey.

  Cardilini knocked on the door. Mr Doney let him in. Doney, not a tall man, had dark hair and a round boulder head on broad, heavy shoulders. Large pieces of furniture left little space to manoeuvre between them. Lounge suites, sideboards, occasional chairs, clustered side tables, standard lamps and pouffes filled the room. A hollowed elephant’s foot that held umbrellas and walking sticks stood by the front door. Framed photos covered every flat surface and hanging pictures stared down from every wall. Only an army badge, crossed rifles supporting a crown in a laurel wreath, inscribed ‘Royal Corps Australian Infantry’ secured a space of its own on the sideboard. Beside it, a small vase of freshly cut yellow roses. Cardilini had noticed similar roses blooming along the driveway.

  ‘Take a seat,’ Mr Doney said.

  Cardilini sat in an armchair.

  Mrs Doney, a small woman who seemed to have folded in on herself, gave Cardilini a brief glance of her dark, bird-like eyes. Mr and Mrs Doney sat opposite on the lounge.

  ‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ Cardilini said.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘And I’m sorry to trouble you.’

  ‘No trouble,’ replied Mr Doney.

  Mrs Doney left to make a pot of tea and Cardilini and Mr Doney talked of the weather, of farming, and eventually, when Mrs Doney had returned and poured the tea, settled on the subject of St Nicholas College.

  ‘Did Peter talk about why he was discharged from the cadets?’ Cardilini asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Were you surprised?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why should we be? He didn’t like it,’ Doney said flatly.

  ‘Did he say what he didn’t like about it?’

  ‘Peter wasn’t one to complain.’

  ‘He was dismissed for not accepting authority,’ Cardilini said.

  ‘That’s what we heard. Anything else?’ Mr Doney asked.

  Mrs Doney now stared, unmoving, at Cardilini.

  ‘Was Peter an experienced driver?’

  ‘An excellent driver. The steering went. Could happen to anyone.’

  ‘Did you tell Senior Constable Young about the steering?’

  ‘What else could it have been?’

  Cardilini turned his gaze from Mr Doney to Mrs Doney, who dropped her eyes.

  ‘Any other questions?’ Mr Doney prompted.

  ‘How was Peter’s state of mind before the accident?’

  ‘Terrific.’

  ‘Where was he going?’

  ‘When?’

  ‘When he took the car?’

  ‘He was … that road goes down to the highway.’

  ‘He was too young to have a license. Why would he be going that way?’

  ‘He was going to check a fence,’ Doney said with a quick glance to his wife.

  ‘I see,’ Cardilini said.

  Returning his cup a
nd saucer to the tray Cardilini casually said, ‘Tragic about Captain Edmund.’

  Doney’s eyes turned murderous.

  Cardilini didn’t exhale until he was in his car, where he fought a feeling of wretchedness.

  Bentley

  6.30 p.m. Wednesday, 4th November 1965

  Evening gathered methodically on the verandahs, among the trees and towards the end of Williamson’s street. From his car Cardilini watched its slow encroachment. I’ll wait until the streetlights come on, he told himself. The streetlights came on and the gloom darkened but he continued sitting. Casual glances came his way from a man watering his front garden. He sat stubbornly. The man went inside his house. A car turned into the street. Cardilini watched it slow down and pull up at Williamson’s house. Cardilini opened his car door and walked towards the car. Bradley Williamson stood by the vehicle waiting for Cardilini to approach.

  ‘Bradley Williamson?’

  ‘Who’s asking?’

  ‘Detective Sergeant Cardilini, East Perth branch.’

  ‘I’ve heard about you.’

  Cardilini paused. Williamson was six foot, square, trim and compact. He held Cardilini in an unblinking gaze.

  ‘From who?’ Cardilini asked.

  ‘Ask your questions, I might answer or I might not.’

  ‘Did you shoot Captain Edmund?’

  Williamson tilted his head back and laughed.

  ‘Did you?’ Cardilini asked again when Williamson had settled.

  ‘They said you had a one-track mind.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Difficult is it, living with that?’ Williamson asked.

  ‘No. Getting away with murder is difficult.’

  ‘Experienced that, have you?’

  A man in complete possession of himself, Cardilini thought, a strong, honest, straightforward man; a man other men would follow without a second thought. Cardilini fought an instinct to like Williamson.

  ‘Do you know who shot Captain Edmund?’ he persisted.

  ‘You’re getting boring, Cardilini.’

  ‘Answer me and I’ll suddenly get interesting.’

  ‘I was on a train from Sydney when it happened, but you’ve been told that.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘My mother told you I was travelling at the time of Edmund’s death.’

  Cardilini remembered Mrs Williamson telling him. The booze had rotted his brain, he thought.

  ‘I know why he was shot,’ Cardilini said.

  ‘Tell me?’

  ‘For the deaths of Geoffrey Masters, Colin Sheppard and Peter Doney.’

  Williamson didn’t respond.

  ‘Maybe you didn’t pull the trigger but you and others decided it was time to stop Edmund’s abuse.’

  ‘You’ve lost me, Cardilini, but how’s Salt going?’ Williamson asked.

  ‘Who was it, Mo Sheppard, Doney? They’re farmers, they’d have access to .303s.’ Cardilini continued.

  ‘Constable Salt will make a good cop. He also sees everything in black and white,’ Williamson ruminated, ignoring Cardilini.

  ‘But you don’t see everything in black and white?’ Cardilini asked.

  ‘Oh yeah, I do. There’s right and there’s wrong. You’ve got to choose where you stand.’

  ‘And you think you have chosen, right?’

  ‘But I guess, Cardilini, you don’t get to choose. You get told what’s right and wrong.’

  ‘What Edmund did was inexcusable.’

  ‘Not everyone agreed with that. But the shooting was accidental, don’t you read your own department reports?’

  ‘Did you read it?’

  ‘Have a good life, Detective Cardilini,’ Williamson said in parting. When almost at the door he turned, ‘I hope your boy does well at the academy.’ He walked into the house with Cardilini watching him until the door closed.

  Without Williamson as his prime suspect, who? And what threads needed to be in place for Williamson to read the report of the shooting? Cardilini shook his head as he returned to his car.

  Thirty-two

  Day 12

  Kilkenny Road

  8.15 a.m. Thursday, 5th November 1965

  Cardilini and Paul cleaned up after breakfast.

  ‘So what’s your plan today, Paul?’ Cardilini asked.

  ‘Going to the library again. I might finish my leaving certificate through a technical college.’

  ‘Don’t jeopardise the academy,’ Cardilini said absently.

  ‘You’re telling me not to jeopardise the academy?’

  ‘No just …’ he caught a glimpse of Paul’s eyes ‘… I have a few calls to make then I’m heading out.’

  ‘I’d be going in the evenings.’

  ‘That’s good. That’s very good son.’

  ‘Yeah, very good. You’re not doing anything to muck it up are you?’

  ‘No. No.’ Cardilini said, all but tiptoeing from the kitchen. He stood with his hand poised over the phone, I’m doing the right thing, he told himself, I’m doing what’s needed for Paul and me.

  His first call to Great Southern Rail confirmed the dates of Williamson’s train arrival in Perth. From the Sydney train the pas­sengers changed to the Perth train in Adelaide. The clerk thought a train manifest might be available at Sydney or Adelaide but not in Perth. He couldn’t say if the passengers were checked at Adelaide.

  The Adelaide Trans Australian Airways office provided a list of flights accessible to the Sydney train’s arrival into Adelaide. Williamson could disembark the train in Adelaide, take a taxi to the airport, catch a flight and be in Perth two days before the train’s arrival. A copy of their flight manifests would be sent to the East Perth station.

  ***

  Cardilini dumped the bulk of his chest on the counter of the typists’ pool. On seeing him, Mrs Andreoli, an attractive blonde woman in her fifties, continued her typing.

  ‘Hi, darling, I’m expecting a radio facsimile,’ Cardilini said.

  ‘I’m expecting a new car, darling, but I don’t think I’ll get it.’

  ‘Very funny. Can you check?’

  ‘Don’t need to. I can hear the bloody thing when something comes through. I’ll put it in your pigeonhole.’

  ‘It’s important.’

  ‘You should see the bucket of bolts I’m driving.’

  ‘Don’t forget.’

  ‘I’ve already forgotten.’ And she waved him away.

  Cardilini stood staring at Mrs Andreoli. They had once been very friendly. He walked away wondering how much of a pain in the arse he must have been the past year.

  ***

  Cardilini rang Constable Saunders in Williams. ‘Hi Saunders, it’s Cardilini.’

  ‘How did you go with Sheppard?’ There was a little smile in the question.

  ‘Interesting fellow. Does he have a .303?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Do you think he could shoot someone?’

  ‘Why not? If he had reason.’

  ‘He has reason.’

  ‘Then,’ a firm response, ‘yep.’

  ‘Could you check around to see if he’s capable of hitting a target at two hundred yards?’

  ‘I’m capable of hitting a target at two hundred yards,’ Saunders laughed.

  ‘All right, a bullseye? A cluster of five out of five?’

  ‘These guys shoot roos. I’ve been with them. There are half-a-dozen who constantly hit their target,’ Saunders concluded.

  ‘Was he home on the night of the twenty-sixth?’ Cardilini asked.

  ‘Is this an official investigation?’

  ‘No, but …’

  ‘Can’t help you. It’s difficult enough in a small community without nosing around for no reason.’ Saunders hung up.

  It m
ade sense that Doney could also make the shot. And he was in Perth at the time. In fact, there were a hundred farmers with sons at St Nicholas who could have reason, access, and the ability to shoot Edmund.

  Cardilini went downstairs to the secretaries’ pool and the detectives’ pigeonholes. A sheet of paper sat neatly in his pigeon­hole. Yes. Yes. Cardilini pulled it out and scanned it. He scanned it again. Then, slowly, went from name to name. He crossed to Mrs Andreoli’s desk.

  ‘Anything else come with this?’ he asked.

  ‘Yeah, but I’m hiding it from you.’

  Cardilini grunted and, returning to the second storey, pondered the manifest. Williamson’s name wasn’t on it. He could have used a false name. Awkward but not impossible. The manifest listed surname, first initial and booking agent.

  Eventually, back at his desk, Cardilini obtained the phone numbers of the four booking agents used. He rang them and verified the identity of twenty-seven individuals; five fitted Williamson’s description, three he had contact details for, two he didn’t. He started to ring. The first three provided employment details. Cardilini checked the employer’s number given with the phone-book number of the employer and rang them. The employers verified the individuals were indeed as identified in the manifest. He started on the phone book to find the remaining two. Twenty-one calls later he had verified their existence.

  Disappointed, he tidied his desk thinking about his hearing tomorrow when his phone rang. It was Constable Saunders from Williams.

  ‘It so happens Sheppard was away for three days. He left town on the twenty-fourth and arrived back on the twenty-seventh. He and a friend from Wongan Hills drove to Lake Grace for an Elder’s sale. I checked. They were legitimate auctions of farming equipment. Two hundred visitors went to the town. Farmers going to the wall in Lake Grace means good value purchases for everyone else.’