by Gordon Reid
‘I mean right here by Laura. We have a lot of leeway. Allowed to use our initiative. We can do anything that gets results, as long as it’s legal, of course. A roving commission, you might say.’
‘Are you smoking the stuff?’
‘You don’t approve?’
‘I could smell it when you came in.’
‘I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.’
‘Not near Robyn, that’s all.’
‘Understood.’
‘You reckon you can control it? Smoking hash?’
‘That’s all I touch.’
‘Okay, okay.’
‘When I say that’s all, I mean it.’
‘Yeah, sorry, mate. Getting good information?’
‘Good enough. Ray knows some people in Griffith. Given me a few names. Pretty sure one of them knows who the Lady is.’
‘And who is she?’
‘Ray doesn’t know yet, but he’s working on it. That’s why I’ve got to be nice to him. Give him some cover.’
‘You mean, let him trade?’
Chook nodded. ‘Yeah.’
‘Protection?’
‘You could call it that.’
Becker was not impressed. He wasn’t too sure he liked the way these Federal agents did things. They never seemed to do anything by the book. Maybe there wasn’t any book. Maybe they made up the rules as they went along. Act first and get the okay later. That caper with Cosco. It had gone wrong. It was a bad move, making a deal with him like that: You give us a name and we won’t give the press Angelina’s statement. Now they didn’t have any way to the top. They might never get to know who killed Evelyn. Who killed Polly.
And the fat man was still around. He’d killed Buster. Or had not personally killed Buster. He’d got someone else to do it. Someone local.
‘Is that your bike there, black under the silvery moon?’
‘It is.’
‘I didn’t hear you.’
‘Nor you should.’
‘I thought all Harleys were ear-splitters.’
‘Not this one, it’s water-cooled. I like to creep up on people. Say boo! to them. Boo or bang!’
‘Have a nice evening, Chook.’
‘I hope so.’
‘Adios, amigo!’ She was about to move off when she said, ‘Hey, guess what I heard next door!’
‘I’m sure you’ll going to tell me.’
‘I asked Ray why is Bert giving you a hard time, staring at your place all the time? He thought for a long time. You know Ray, it takes a lot to get him to open his mouth, except when he has a bong stuck in it. He said it’s all about a girl named Caitlin.’
‘Caitlin?’
‘Don’t ask me who she is. I asked him and he went blank, the way he does when he’s high.’
‘Did you ask Bert?’
‘I never ask Bert anything. He just stares at me then walks away, very slowly, as though he’s lost something in the grass and weeds and bits and pieces of a leftover life scattered about that place. Might be worth following up, though.’
With that she was up and away, swiftly and silently like a swooping magpie, which has got behind you in the nesting season.
He went back inside. Robyn was making a salad.
‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.
He was going to deny it, but it must have showed all over his face and hands and body and even his hair, which was untidy enough most times. It always seemed to bristle when he was angry or worried or sceptical or edgy.
‘That bloke,’ he said.
‘What bloke? Old Bert?’
‘I don’t trust him.’
She took her hands out of the bowl. She always used her hands when tossing salad. Something a good chef did, she said.
And wiped them.
‘Why, dear?’
‘His silence.’
‘He’s an old man. I get along okay with him.’
‘He stands and looks.’
‘Looks?’
‘At this house. At us.’
‘He doesn’t seem to have much else to do, dear. I mean, that place of his is all weeds. It’s that or stare at the traffic on the road. Or, the occasional bird in the sky, going home to the river for the night.’
‘He looks as if he’s thinking things.’
‘What do you mean? Thinking what, Harry?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘Oh, come on—’ She went to put her arms about her neck, careful not to touch. Still smelly with dressing.
‘He looks as if he’s gonna do something.’
‘Do what?’ She jerked. ‘Harry? Do what?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Harry? What? Why would he hurt us?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Then, why do you think he will?’
‘I’m not saying he will.’
‘But, you think he’s thinking?’
He edged away. Went to wash his hands for dinner.
She followed. ‘Harry? Harry? Did Stacey say something?’
He paused at the bathroom door. ‘Ray says it’s all about someone called Caitlin.’
‘Caitlin? Caitlin? What about her?’
‘I don’t know. Ray didn’t say anything else.’
‘But, dear, Caitlin was Dad’s mother.’
‘Yeah, I think that’s the whole point.’
Becker sat at the table, eating a large pork chop slowly cooked with sliced onion, lemon and tomato and a sprinkle of caraway seed. He didn’t say anything more about Caitlin. He wanted to go on with it, but she did not. He didn’t want to talk about some girl who had died long ago. So, that was that.
‘There is salad and sliced potato,’ she said. She often did sliced potato with butter dripping hot. Reminding her of the night when he’d taken her to Romano’s Hotel, sat her down and told her he was going to buy a farm and asked whether she’d like to see it. And she had said, clutching her throat: Oh, gosh, wow, do you mean it?
All of which she knew he would have forgotten long ago, but she never would. She often served up what she thought was as good scalloped potatoes. But knew she never would recreate what had been so wonderfully there on that night. He had, in effect, asked her to marry him. And he was a policeman, or had been a policeman. He looked as though he could handle men like Martie. And he had handled Martie like an expert. Saved them all from murder. So, she had gone to bed with him that night. She’d never done such a thing, not so quickly. But she wanted to be with him, live with him. So that no-one would hurt her again. And had surprised all her friends. Who’d said, surprised, ‘You’ve known him only a few weeks or so, and he’s asked you to marry him. And you’ve said, yes. Do you really know this man, Robbie?’ ‘Yes,’ she had said, ‘Yes I do.’
‘Harry? Have you remembered what night it is?’
‘Huh? Oh, someone’s birthday?’
‘No, dear, it is exactly a year since you took me to Romano’s.’
‘Is it? Oh, yeah, sure. We must go there again.’
‘That would be nice, wouldn’t it? Candle light and the music, not too loud and a woman singing, Besame—’
‘Besame?’
‘Mucho,’ she said.
She began singing to herself, with a mouth full of food, humming. And looking to one side as if there again. Eating with him by candlelight. And a woman in the background, singing, recorded. So that, at the thought of it, she began to sway. To the rhythm and her own thoughts. Robyn was one of those women who could dance while seated. Her feet going.
Becker did not notice. He was eating thoughtfully. He loved pork chops, slow-cooked. The lemon was great.
‘Besame mucho?’
‘Kiss me a lot.’
‘Yeah?’
She stopped dancing. There was something on his mind, s
he sensed. Something else, not her grandmother, Caitlin Elliott. So she let it pass. There was always something on his mind. Possibly what had happened to his cousin that afternoon. Arrested, taken to Wagga Base Hospital, for examination. The poor man, he’d fallen down, raving. Even crying, Harry had said. They didn’t know what to do with him. Her husband was eating too fast. It was not good for him, she knew. He was starting to put on weight, even with all the work he did on the farm, feeding the cows with oats and barley every day now. It being so dry. They were going into another drought. Everyone said so.
Chapter 25
He changed the subject. He asked her what he’d been thinking of asking ever since old Bob had said there had been something strange about the truck crash. ‘What happened to Arnold?’ She’d frozen, had stared at him for several seconds, then had said, ‘I don’t wish to talk about it.’ You could not have shocked her more stingingly. She’d known that one day the question would come up. But if it did, he would not understand, or if he did, would not see the significance. ‘All I am asking is what happened to him,’ he’d said. ‘Arnold?’ she’d said, distantly. ‘I only know his truck ran off the road, not far north of Tarcutta,’ he’d said. ‘It seems he’d gone to sleep at the wheel. And the truck had burst into flames, after hitting a tree?’ ‘Yes,’ she’d said. ‘As simple as that?’ he’d asked. ‘Yes,’ she’d said, ‘as simple as that.’ She was getting up, taking the dishes and walking out. ‘But,’ he said. ‘why did Bob say: Who’d want to leave a lovely girl like that?’ She’ d stopped at the door, stock still for a moment. ‘Why not?’ she had said.
Then she was gone, into the kitchen. That had been that. Nothing more had been said on the matter until they’d gone to bed, the lights out except one in the hall, illumination enough to undress by and to get to sleep in. She slept on the right-hand side, near the door lest one of the kids cried or called in the night. So that, if you looked at her from his side, she was outlined against the dim and yet pellucid glow, lying on her back, wide awake and fiddling with her fingers. ‘Harry?’ she said. ‘Are you awake?’
He was nodding off. ‘Yeah?’
‘I’m sorry, I can’t sleep.’
‘Come here,’ he said. She rolled toward him. ‘What is it?’
She sighed. It was a long sigh, having made a decision but not sure of the words. She lay in his arms for a long time, apparently thinking, one hand to her lips, the thumb not in her mouth so much as a thumbnail to her teeth. And thinking.
‘He did leave me,’ she said at last.
‘Why?’
‘To kill himself.’
‘Yeah?’
‘It is true, he did it deliberately.’
‘Deliberately ran off the road?’
She nodded, the thumbnail still under her top teeth. ‘Yes.’
‘Did he say he was going to do it?’
‘No, not to me.’
‘To someone else?
‘I don’t know. Possibly.’
‘Why wouldn’t he tell you?’
‘Because I was his wife.’
‘Was it money?’
‘No, he had enough. We had enough.’
‘No threats of foreclosure, nothing like that?’
‘No.’
‘Why do you think he did it?’
She did not answer at first. Then she said: ‘The shame, I suppose.’
‘You mean he’d done something bad?’
‘Yes.’
‘A crime of some kind?’
‘No, not really, not now.’
‘Not fiddling the books, something like that?’
‘No, not at all.’
‘It was something, not much of a crime but shameful?’
‘Yes, I suppose that was it.’
‘Another woman?’
‘No.’
‘He was a bigamist?’
‘No, not at all.’
‘I give up.’
She sighed again. The time had to come. Harry was sure to hear something or other. Thank goodness her parents did not know. Although her mother might have sensed. She waited, trying to put it off, but inevitability is hard to resist.
‘He was gay,’ she said.
‘Gay? You mean—’
‘Yes, he did it with men.’
‘In Wagga?’
‘No, in Melbourne. He used to go down there with a truck load of stuff, two or three times a week.’
‘Did you know about this?’
‘I had no idea.
‘Did you know he was gay, when you married?’
‘I don’t think he was gay then. Perhaps he’d done something when young, just fooling around. I don’t know.’
‘When did you find out?’
‘When he was arrested.’
‘The police came to your house?’
‘Oh, no, it happened in Victoria. He used to go down one day and back the next. Sometimes he’d work six days. He always had Sunday off.’
‘He had friends in Melbourne?’
‘Yes.’
‘Were they caught?’
‘Only one other.’
‘How did you find out?’
‘It was in a paper, a clipping.’
‘The local paper?’
‘No, the Melbourne Sun.’
‘You read it in the Sun?’
‘In a list of court appearances. The name Sheldrake jumped out at me.’
‘What did it say?’
‘He was charged with committing an indecent act in a public place.’
‘In Melbourne?’
‘Yes.’
He didn’t know how to put the next question. But he tried: ‘An indecent act? With another man?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who sent the clipping to you?’
‘They did not say.’
‘They must have said something.’
‘Only a few written words: Do you know about this?’
‘No clue whatever?’
‘Nothing.’
‘What about the handwriting?’
‘I did not recognise it.’
‘How did you know it was in the Sun?’
‘It was cut out too. The name of the paper and the date. They print it at the top of each page.’
‘So they do.’ He looked away, his arm still around. ‘Who do you think sent it?’
‘I’ve wracked my brains, trying.’
‘You didn’t suspect anyone? Not a friend? Not an enemy?’
‘No-one I could think.’
‘What friend would do that?
‘I dread to think, Harry.’
He thought about it. ‘So he could not face you, after you told him?’
‘I didn’t tell him. I showed him the clipping.’
‘And what did he say?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Nothing at all?’
‘He just got dressed as he always did before making a run.’
‘Did he say goodbye?’
‘He mumbled something as he went out. It could have been goodbye. Or, I’m sorry. But he did not kiss me. He always kissed me, when he went off to work.’
‘He just left? In the truck?’
‘Not in the truck. He always walked to the depot, where he’d pick up the truck, already fully loaded.’
‘Then he drove off, down the Hume, as per normal?’
‘It seems so.’
‘Until he reached Tarcutta?’
‘Just before Tarcutta, a mile or two.’
‘And suddenly turned off, plunged off?’
‘It seems so.’
‘He wouldn’t have fallen asleep after such a short trip?’
‘No, not at all. He was quite bright and cheery before I showed him the cutting. He had
slept well, as if happy with life. He always went off happily, happy to be on the road again.’
‘Such a terrible shock, Rob.’
‘Yes, it was.’
‘Finding that out, then hearing from the police, about the crash, I mean.’
‘Yes.’
‘A terrible way to die,’ he said.
‘Yes, terrible.’
‘So what did you do, then?’
‘Gathered the kids after school and went up to Dad and Mum in Railway Street.’
‘Did you tell them?’
‘I just said Arnold had run off the road near Tarcutta and crashed. I didn’t say he was burned to death.’
‘They would have soon found out.’
‘Yes, in The Bulletin, next day.’
‘So how long did you stay with them?’
‘Until after the funeral.’
‘How did you feel about all this?’
‘Oh, very bad. The looks and stares I was getting, people talking about me.’
‘Because of the crash?’
‘The press item, I think.’
‘So, you decided to leave, get out of Wagga?’
‘That’s when I met Martin.’
‘The Vietnam vet?’
‘I was walking through Memorial Park one Sunday with the kids, looking for a seat, when a man said, ‘There’s a spot here.’ He was a red-haired man with a beard, or he had been red-headed but going grey, quite well trimmed, I thought. So I told the kids to go and throw biscuit bits to the ducks and sat there with him. Not actually with him, but beside him. And we got talking. He said he was from Canberra, just down to look around. I said I was a local, but thinking I was going to move off somewhere. He said, ‘Come to Canberra,’ and a few weeks later I did.’
‘Where he drove a taxi?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you got involved with him?’
‘He was quite reasonable then, quite personable, as they have to be, driving a taxi.’
‘Did he own the taxi?’
‘No, but he was always very polite and looked after me, showing me around, in Canberra I mean, and the kids. I thought I’d marry him; he wanted me to marry him. He didn’t put any pressure on me at all. I was quite happy with him. But if I mentioned anyone else, even a female friend, he’d wanted to know everything about him or her. He’d drill me, as if I were a spy. He became quite obsessive and—’
‘Possessive?’