Dust Off the Bones

by Paul Howarth

  “Well, if there is a silver lining, perhaps that is it. Work might be in the sewer but I am perfectly happy at home. Not that I suspect you actually care.”

  He seemed to have blown himself out a bit. Billy said, “Is there somewhere we can talk, out of view of the street?”

  Henry took a long breath then led him into the office, an airless little room drowning under the sea of paper that spilled from every surface and covered most of the floor. “Just clear off those files there,” he told Billy, pointing to a chair, while he edged round the other side. “So,” Henry said, flopping down, as warily Billy took a seat, “what’s with this sudden change of heart?”

  “I need to know if I can trust you first.”

  “You’ve already admitted lying under oath. It’s a little late for that.”

  “Just answer the bloody question.”

  “I don’t . . . what are you even asking here?”

  “If I tell you, if we do anything, it’s on my terms, understand?”

  Henry straightened a little, his attention piqued. “All right. Go on.”

  “What you just said, about me lying, it being a crime—is that right?”

  “I’m afraid so, yes.”

  “Meaning what exactly?”

  “Well, you could be prosecuted for perjury, but I suppose it would depend.”

  “On what?”

  “On whether a deal could be struck first.”

  Billy pointed at him. “That’s what I’m getting at: What kind of deal?”

  “Again, it would depend on what the perjurer has to say.” He noticed Billy’s irritation, explained, “I’m not trying to be circuitous here. It really does boil down to a quid pro quo. But for you, for something like this, let’s say you were to retract your earlier testimony and blow this thing wide open, help root out Noone and all the rest—assuming we have support, politically—then I’d expect immunity from prosecution wouldn’t be out of the question.”

  “And you could arrange that?”

  “I could certainly try. Anonymously, of course. Until the terms are agreed.”

  “It wouldn’t just be for me, neither. Katherine, Tommy . . . all of us involved.”

  “My God, how many of you were there?”

  Laughing, Billy said, “The whole fucking country knows what went on back then. But the only ones I’m bothered about taking care of are my own.”

  “That sounds reasonable enough. You were all children, I suppose.”

  “Would I have to go to court again?”

  “I’d imagine so, in one form or another. Actually, I’m thinking we might be better off doing something extra-judiciously. Royal Commission, Parliamentary Enquiry, that sort of thing.”

  “And how long would all that take to set up?”

  “Probably months, certainly weeks. I’d want to be discreet.”

  “But you know people?”

  “Not as many as I used to, admittedly, but there is someone, yes. I have a friend high up in the attorney general’s office. I will see if he can help.”

  “Do you trust him?”

  “With my life.” Henry leaned forward, elbows crinkling the papers spread over the desk. “Listen, Billy, our personal history aside, there is nothing I want more in this world than to get another crack at Edmund Noone. I see him parading around the city and I had him, the bastard, I had him and he wriggled free.”

  “You ain’t scared of him then?”

  “The man has already ruined me. What more could he do?”

  Billy sat there contemplating a tea-stained document on the cluttered desk, and when he spoke his eyes never moved: “Well, I might as well just say it. We did it. We killed them. Exactly like that priest of yours said.”

  “All of them?”

  “Aye, other than the gins Noone kept to sell.”

  Henry fell back in his chair, as if blown there. “And the bodies?”

  “Burned.”

  “Have you been back?”

  “What do you think?”

  “But could you find it? Do you know where the crater is?”

  “Probably, aye.”

  “So you could take me there?”

  Billy sighed, nodding. “If I have to.”

  “Because I’ve learned my lesson, Billy. If we’re to win this time, we’ll need more than just your word. Bodies, preferably. I’ll bring a photographer. Are there any other witnesses we could try to find?”

  “What happened to your priest?”

  “He disappeared. I never heard from him again. In fact, I always wondered if you’d had something to do with that, the night you came to my room.”

  Billy shook his head. “Not me.”

  “So there’s nobody else?” Henry said. “Your brother, perhaps?”

  “No. Tommy’s not involved, neither’s Katherine. You get them immunity but they’re kept out of it, understand?”

  “Fine. But in that case we’ll need every last shred of evidence we can get.”

  “Well, there’s something else they might be interested in. His troopers, them that were with us at the time, Noone shot all three of them, plus a pregnant gin. I seen him do it, same day he burned down Drew Bennett’s barn. Helped dig the hole myself.”

  “Bennett? The man from the inquest?”

  Billy nodded. “He might be willing to talk about it, I don’t know.”

  Henry was watching him gravely. “Quite the team, you and Noone. Is there anything else?”

  “Isn’t this enough?”

  “Assuming we can prove any of it, yes.”

  “I doubt we’ll find them troopers, mind. Middle of nowhere it was.”

  Henry paused. “Can I ask, has something happened? Why are you doing this now?”

  “You look at your life . . .” Billy began, then faltered. The words felt all wrong in his mouth. “I’ve done all right for myself, Henry. Better than all right. Everything I ever wanted, I’ve got it, but it’s like it’s hollow somehow, empty underneath.”

  “Ah, I see.”

  “Don’t you fucking judge me.”

  “No judgment here. Your conscience is your own business. Lord knows, I’ve had enough trouble with mine.”

  Billy waved a hand. “Hell, at least you tried.”

  “Not about that. I know fine well I tried. Of course, if I had my time again I would do things very differently. I was overconfident back then, naive.”

  “Here’s to second chances all round then.”

  They shared the silence a little more comfortably. Henry asked, “How long are you in town?”

  “Till tomorrow. I’ve business down south for a couple of days, then I’ll be coming back through on the way home. Does that give you enough time?”

  “I can make some initial enquiries, certainly. Get a feel for how it lies.”

  “Good.”

  “Perhaps I should travel with you. To Bewley. Strike while the iron’s hot.”

  “To see the crater?”

  “Exactly. And talk to this man Bennett about the rest.”

  “Bit soon for all that, isn’t it?”

  “The authorities will want to know what we have before signing off on any deal. Like I said, your word alone won’t be enough.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ll think about it. Don’t book your ticket yet.”

  Billy scraped back the chair and stood. They shook hands. He paused in the office a moment but could think of nothing more to say, so he left. Through the little reception area and out into the alley; the bell didn’t ring when he opened the front door. A dull thudding sound—Billy scowled up at it then pulled the door closed, dodging a rodent that came scrabbling over the cobbled ground. Christ, he hated cities. He buried his hands in his pockets, and walked on.

  Chapter 33

  Police Sergeant Percy

  They had a telephone at the Bellevue, in the office behind the front desk. The clerk watched Billy leave through the main doors, climb into a waiting buggy, pull away. He picked up the telephone and dialed
. When the call was connected he gave his name and said, “Our mutual friend from the country is in town again. He’s attending a meeting currently. I have the details.” There was no reply from the other end. A click, and the line went dead. The clerk returned the earpiece to the cradle and set down the telephone, went out and resumed his post. Within ten minutes, Percy had arrived.

  Into the lobby he skulked, chin tucked, head down, a furtive stoop to his shoulders, eyes roving all corners of the room. The doorman went to challenge him, hesitated; Percy walked directly to the desk. He stared at the clerk in silence until the clerk began to squirm. Pockmarked cheeks, that dimple in his chin—he still looked young for a man in his thirties, but the eyes were black and firm.

  “Where is he?”

  The clerk plucked a note from his waistcoat and handed it over. Percy read it, expressionless, folded the note, and slipped it into his trouser pocket. He was wearing a brown suit with a cream-colored shirt, no waistcoat, no tie.

  “When did he leave?”

  “Right before I telephoned. He’d only just walked out the door.”

  Percy held out a calloused hand. “Room key.”

  “I really don’t think I should—”

  “Key.”

  A long blink then the clerk reached under the counter and placed a key in Percy’s hand. He told him the room number. Percy took the stairs. He found the door and unlocked it, turned the handle, slipped inside, locked it again once he was in. He moved through the room slowly. Not touching anything, barely making a sound, smooth soles whispering over the carpet pile. Shirts and a suit hung in the wardrobe, a small suitcase stored below. Percy checked the suit pockets then picked up the suitcase and laid it open on the bed, found a small stack of travel documents tucked into the lid. Onward train tickets to Melbourne, departing tomorrow; a name and address on a handwritten note. Percy read it all very carefully, memorizing every detail, then he restacked the papers and returned them to the case. He put the suitcase back in the wardrobe, cracked the door and checked the corridor, then slid out of the room.

  In Fortitude Valley he walked casually through the slums and alleyways, like a man who very much belonged. Hands in his pockets, side-stepping vendors and grifters, carriages, horseshit, dogs, he found the street the clerk had given him, then the law office of Henry Wells. He stood outside the window, considering. The waiting room was empty but there was light farther inside. There’d be an alleyway or yard behind the building, but he wasn’t sure he had time; Billy might even have left by now. He tried the door and found it unlocked, felt the resistance of the bell above, the clapper lying inert on the rim. Percy snaked his hand up through the gap, took hold of the clapper, and with a sharp yank, broke it off. He dropped it into his pocket, eased open the door, leaving it ajar as he crossed the little waiting room and stood pressed against the office wall, listening to the conversation inside.

  “How long are you in town?”

  “Till tomorrow. I’ve business down south for a couple of days, then I’ll be coming back through on the way home. Does that give you enough time?”

  “I can make some initial enquiries, certainly. Get a feel for how it lies.”

  “Good.”

  “Perhaps I should travel with you. To Bewley. Strike while the iron’s hot.”

  “To see the crater?”

  “Exactly. And talk to this man Bennett about the rest.”

  “Bit soon for all that, isn’t it?”

  “The authorities will want to know what we have before signing off on any deal. Like I said, your word alone won’t be enough.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ll think about it. Don’t book your ticket yet.”

  A chair scraping, sounds of movement; Percy hurried around the reception desk and back outside, the bell thudding dully as he closed the front door. He found a corner to hide behind and moments later watched Billy McBride—older since he last saw him, heavier, looked to have put on some weight—step out of the law office, glance up at the broken bell, put his hands in his pockets, and walk away along the street.

  Percy didn’t bother following. He already knew what Billy had planned.

  * * *

  In a box at His Majesty’s Theatre on Queen Street, Police Commissioner Edmund Noone sat with his wife, Cassandra, and their two daughters and their husbands, watching an evening performance of La Bohème. The men were dressed formally in dinner suits, the women were expensively, elaborately frocked. Five rapt faces fixated on the stage, while Noone’s gray gaze wandered the stalls. He was intolerably bored. All this warbling about poverty and love. He shifted in his chair—the thing had been going for hours—and Cassandra reached for his hand, gripped it so tight her nails dug into his skin. Evidently something had happened. It seemed someone was dying onstage. A woman lay in bed while a man wailed over her; idly Noone patted his wife’s hand, hoping this might mean they were nearing the end.

  “There there,” he whispered softly. “There there.”

  The curtain fell finally. An eruption of applause from below. People began standing, including his family; Noone felt obliged to do the same. He didn’t applaud. One of his sons-in-law whooped and shouted “Bravo!” Noone glowered at him and he stopped. He disliked both of his daughters’ husbands. In their way they were perfectly suitable, of course—came from the right families, with the right prospects, careers in politics and law—but when they’d asked his permission for marriage it had been mostly apathy he had felt. But then, the girls had to marry eventually, so why not these two dolts? Truthfully, any suitor that presented himself would have been as unsatisfactory as the next.

  He leaned close to Cassandra, eyeing the exit door behind. “I’ll see you outside,” he told her, and she glanced at him reproachfully, her hands still a blur of applause; the actors were now taking their curtain call. Noone didn’t care whether she approved or not. He found these social occasions utterly stultifying. Rise and fall, clap and cheer, shake hands, kiss cheeks, the banality of the conversations he endured. As he’d already done during each intermission, he would now be expected to mingle in the bar, talking to all the right men. He was so thoroughly sick of it, the mundanity—yesterday he had opened a new police station, cutting the ribbon like some trumped-up mayor. And Noone couldn’t stand the mayor of Brisbane. Never had a welder risen so far.

  He left the box, waved away the startled usher, and stood on the balcony overlooking the foyer. Waiters and bellboys scurrying, preparing for the end of the show . . . and Percy down there waiting for him, leaning against a pillar near the doors. Noone straightened. A shiver of excitement down his spine. With a lightness belying his age he skipped down the curved staircase to the ground floor. The years had not diminished him. In fact he looked very much the same. No gray in his hair or mustache, few lines creasing his skin. He strode across the foyer to Percy. “My boy,” he said. “Thank God.”

  “You ain’t enjoying the show then?”

  “I’ve been to better funerals. Tell me, what’s happened?”

  “Billy McBride’s in town again. Staying at the Bellevue.”

  “Another milkmaids’ convention, is it? A symposium on castration techniques?”

  “He’s just been to Henry Wells’s office. I seen him there myself. They was talking about the lawyer going out to Bewley, visiting the crater, talking to that cunt Bennett, after cutting some deal here with the high-up law.”

  Noone’s face hardened. Hollow eyes staring down. “When?”

  “Not yet. Billy’s headed to Melbourne first. Wells says he’ll make enquiries, they’ll meet up when he’s back.”

  Noone inhaled deeply, his chest swelling, his nostrils flared. The smile when it came was wicked. “Oh dear, Billy-boy. What have you done?”

  Chapter 34

  Tommy McBride

  Tommy leaned casually against the bakery counter, waiting for Emily to finish for the day. Wrapping up the leftovers, wiping round with a cloth, an easy economy in her movement, she’d done it so many times.
She was wearing a plain white dress and a flour-stained brown apron and her hair was tied up in a bun. Rosy-cheeked from the bread ovens, and all those customers, hour after hour on her feet. Tommy smiled absently. Tired after another day in the fields, lost in the rhythm of her work. It was dark outside, for three-thirty. Thick clouds threatening rain.

  “Stop it,” Emily said, glancing up at him.

  “Stop what?”

  “Looking at me like that. I’m trying to work.”

  “I’m only looking.”

  She paused. “No you’re not. You’re thinking. I can hear the wheels turn.”

  “You’ve not even given me an answer. Are you coming back or not?”

  “I said maybe. Let me get finished up here first.”

  “It’s been ages.”

  She laughed. “It’s been two days.”

  “Well, it looks like we’re in for a soaking if you don’t hurry up deciding.”

  “You go. I’ll walk up if the weather holds.”

  “We could eat them two leftover pies if you fancy. Take them off your hands.”

  She smirked at him. “You’ve only ever wanted me for my pies.”

  “Now come on, that’s not fair. Bread, pasties—you know I ain’t choosy.” She laughed again, couldn’t help herself. Tommy said, “Is that a yes, then?”

  She took up wiping. “I think you hear what you want to hear.”

  “I haven’t heard a no.”

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake, there’s just no arguing with you, is there. All right, give me ten minutes. Meet me round the back.”

  Tommy slapped the counter victoriously. “I’ll be at the pub.”

  He crossed the road to Mickey’s, the rusted, iron-roofed shack that served as the town’s only watering hole, pushed open the door and weaved among the empty tables to the bar. Few drinkers in at this hour: by six o’clock you’d be lucky to find a seat, the room filled with laughter and swearing and smoke so thick you could hardly breathe. Tommy greeted the men in there. They nodded and mumbled his name. He pulled out a stool and sat down beside Jim Collier at the bar; Mick standing behind it, slab-faced and white-haired, tattoos on his thick folded arms. He poured Tommy a beer without him ordering, set it foaming on the mat.