By Peter Corris
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J |
acko Brown was an old mate. We’d boxed together in the Maroubra Police Boys Club, surfed together and got shot at in the Malayan Emergency. After dropping out of law school I’d drifted into insurance investigation and eventually into one-man private work. Jacko had spent a bit of time in the police force and then inherited a farm from his uncle and gone bush. We stayed in touch by phone and when he came to the smoke he looked me up and we had a drink. That happened about once every two or three years. It was a one way street until he phoned me and this time it wasn’t to agree on what pub to meet in.
‘I need some help, Cliff.’
‘Tell me,’ I said.
‘I need you to come out here.’
‘Jesus, it’s what, five hundred kilometres?’
‘Nearer seven fifty. But it’s a reasonable road for five hundred or so, gets a bit rough west of Nyngan.’
‘Is there anything west of Nyngan?’
‘Yeah. Carter’s Creek, my town.’
‘People?’
‘Cut it out, mate. You’re not that much of a city slicker. I really need you to come out here and help me, help us.’
He’d never asked for anything from me before and he wasn’t the sort to ask lightly. I agreed to get there within the week, as soon as I’d cleared up the few things I had hanging. I contacted Glen Withers, an old girlfriend who’d recently succumbed to the lures of one of the big private investigation outfits after running her own show for a few years. On the strength of her new earning power she’d bought a newish Pajero, but I knew she’d always lusted after my vintage Falcon and I arranged a temporary swap.
‘Where’re you going?’ Glen said as she handed me the keys.
‘West.’
‘You’ve never been west of Mount Victoria.’
‘Not true. I went to Broken Hill once.’
‘Why?’
‘I forget. I must’ve been drunk.’
‘Well, don’t drink and drive my Pajero. Are we talking a fortnight?’
‘Could be less, could be more.’
‘Thanks a lot, but okay. Take care, Cliff.’
* * * *
Two days and a couple of lungsful of dust later I was in Carter’s Creek. It wasn’t one of those blink-and-you’ll-miss-it sort of places, but it certainly wasn’t big. The main gravel road was crossed by a couple of dusty streets with a few houses scattered around. There was the pub, a police station, a couple of shops, a fire brigade and a bank. A building hidden by trees looked like a school and another, similarly shrouded, was either a church or a community hall.
The country around the town looked to be well watered and green for the time of year. I’d crossed a couple of creeks and one sizeable river—the Narriyellan. I’d tried to look the town up in the couple of atlases and guides I had but they were well out of date and it didn’t rate much of a mention. The district was described as given over to ‘mixed farming’, which meant nothing to an urbanite like me. After Nyngan I’d got an impression of big properties with good fences and irrigation systems and that was about it.
It was March and late in the afternoon but still hot. I parked the 4 WD in the shade of a couple of ghost gums in company with two utes, a tractor, a light truck and a few dust coated cars and went into the pub. The bar was dim and cool the way a bar should be and the few drinkers present were in groups of two and three drinking and talking quietly. Jacko had never been much of a drinker and I didn’t expect to see him there at this time of day. I ordered a beer and asked the barman where I could find him.
He pulled the beer before responding. ‘Mate of yours?’
I fished for money and nodded.
‘Army and that?’
I sipped the cold beer and felt it clean my throat. ‘Long time back.’
‘You’d be Cliff Hardy then.’ He stuck out his hand. ‘Ted, Ted Firth.’
We shook and I drank some more beer. A couple of the other men looked across but no one moved. Firth pulled another beer and pushed it towards me. ‘Jacko said you’d be in. He’s shouted you the first two.’
I noticed that he hadn’t touched the note I’d put on the bar. I sank the first beer and started on the second. ‘I know I’ll be driving out to his place. Is the copper around?’
Firth looked surprised. ‘You want him?’
I lifted the glass. ‘I was thinking about being over the limit. I haven’t eaten since morning.’
He laughed. ‘You don’t have to worry about that out here, mate. With Vic Bruce, it’s live and let live. He’ll be in for his three schooners later. Look, I can get the missus to make you a sandwich.’
When I was younger I could drive five hundred miles and go to a party. Not any more. I put my bum on a stool and let out a sigh. ‘That’ll be great. Then I’ll pay for another beer and buy you one.’
‘You’re on.’
He went off and came back inside ten minutes with a beef and pickle sandwich that would’ve choked a horse. Somehow I got it down, helped by the third middy. I checked my watch.
‘I’ve got to get some money,’ I said. ‘I’ll just slip down to the bank.’
Firth shook his head as he collected my glass. ‘Bank’s closed, mate. That’s what this is all about.’
I sank back on the stool. ‘I don’t know what this is. You’d better fill me in.’
‘Naw. Better let Jacko do that.’
‘Well, I still need money for petrol. I suppose it’s a fair run out to his place?’
‘Not really. Fifty k’s is all.’
‘And I wanted to take him some grog, so . . .’
‘Jacko doesn’t drink.’
‘Since when?’
He leaned closer. ‘Since his missus died. Sounds like you and Jacko haven’t been in close touch.’
‘It’s been a while.’
‘Yeah, well, Shirl was killed when Jacko rolled his ute. He’d had a few. Wasn’t pissed, mind, but Shirl was a popular local girl and there was a bit of feeling for a while. From her family and that. Anyway, Jacko swore off the grog. Doesn’t have any on the place.’
‘Okay. Just as well you told me. But I still need some money.’
‘You’ve got a problem. Now for a while I was cashing blokes’ cheques but I had to stop.’
‘You got dudded?’
‘No. No way. No one around here’d do that to me. My accountant made me stop. He reckoned it was a service and I’d have to charge a GST. Fucked if I was goin’ to do that. The books are hard enough to keep as it is. This bloody globalisation’s fucking us slowly if you ask me.’
‘So how do people get money?’
‘They drive to Cobar, mate. And with petrol the price it is . . . More globalisation, see?’
‘Yeah. Well, I can probably make fifty k’s if you can just point me the way.’
‘No need. Jacko’s boy Kevin’s been hanging around waiting for you since yesterday. He’s over at the table there. He’ll be pissed but he should still know the way home.’
‘Jacko must’ve described me to him. Why didn’t he come over and say hello?’
‘He’s a funny bugger, Kevin. You’d better haul him out while he can still walk.’
I approached the table where three young men were drinking beer from long necks, smoking and playing cards. I suppose I’d seen photographs of Jacko’s son but not since he was an adolescent. Still, it was impossible to mistake him. In his early twenties, he had his father’s thick dark hair, heavy features and stringy athletic build. He was broad-shouldered and snake-hipped in T-shirt, jeans and boots. He saw me coming but ignored me. Took a swig from his bottle.
‘Kevin Brown?’ I said.
The look he gave me was an insult in itself—a combination of boredom and contempt. ‘Yeah. You must be the great Cliff Hardy.’
‘I’m Hardy, don’t know about the great. Ted over there says you’ll show me the way to your dad’s place.’
‘Yeah. When I’m ready.’
He was slurring his words and the hand laying down his cards and fumbling for a cigarette was far from steady.
‘Could we make it soon, d’you reckon? I’ve had a long drive and I’m a bit whacked.’
One of his mates slung back his chair and got to his feet, all 190 plus centimetres of him. He was very big, very belligerent and very drunk. He wore a singlet and shorts and had plenty of muscle on him along with a good deal of beer fat. ‘Didn’t you hear him, mate? He said when he’s fuckin’ good and ready.’
‘I think he’s ready now. And you should sit down before you fall over.’
He stepped around the table and from the way he balanced himself, drunk as he was, I could tell he’d done some ring fighting. He threw a looping left that almost reached me and it was plain as day that his next punch was a right uppercut coming from around his knees. I moved to the left and let him throw it and, while his balance was all right for coming forward, it was no good for sideways, which was where he tried to move when he saw his punch would miss. He swayed with neither hand doing anything useful, and it was child’s play to poke a straight right into his belly and land a left hook to his thick neck. He was big so I put something into it. He pawed the air, gasped for breath and went down hard.
I gestured to Kevin Brown. ‘Let’s go, Kevin.’
He got up and gathered his cigarettes as if hypnotised. I pointed to one of his friends. ‘Better make sure your mate doesn’t swallow his tongue.’
I waved to the barman and shepherded Kevin outside. He went like a lamb and climbed into the Pajero without a word. I started it up. ‘Which way?’
He pointed and we were off. After a kilometre or so, by which time we were on a dirt road heading west into the sun, he said, ‘Jimmy’s never been beaten in a street fight or a tent fight.’
I grunted. ‘They were probably pissed like him.’
‘You’d had a few.’
‘If I’d had as much as Jimmy he’d probably have beaten me. As it was, he was too slow.’
He sniffed and pulled out his cigarettes. Lit up. ‘Tough guy,’ he said.
I had nothing to say to that and we drove on in silence while he smoked and I squinted into the lowering sun. The fuel gauge was low but I reckoned there was enough if Ted Firth’s estimate of the distance was right.
‘About fifty k’s is it, Kevin?’
‘About that. Shit, I meant to buy some grog. All that carry-on stopped me.’
‘I heard your dad doesn’t allow alcohol on the place.’
‘What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. Unless you tell him.’
‘Grow up. That’s between you and him. I was sorry to hear about your mother.’
‘Why? Did you ever meet her?’
‘Once. A long time ago.’
He sighed. ‘That’s how it is with you blokes. Everything’s a long time ago.’
‘Not everything. Your dad’s got some kind of problem in the here and now. Want to tell me about it?’
He didn’t answer or if he did I couldn’t hear him because a plane passed over low down but rising, heading east.
‘I’d have flown up if I’d known there was a service,’ I said.
‘There isn’t. The planes run supplies and equipment and manpower to the big properties and freight out the produce. It’s the only way to do business out here in woop-woop.’
Globalisation, I thought. ‘And what do you do out here in woop-woop, Kevin?’
‘Bugger-all. I was in the bank but it closed down.’
I was beginning to get an idea of the shape of things. Kevin lit another cigarette and blew the smoke out with a beer-laden breath. He was still fit-looking but wouldn’t be for long if he went on the way he was going. His fingers were heavily nicotine-stained. ‘I understand you used to be a pretty good footballer.’
He snorted his derision. ‘Yeah, back when the town wasn’t just geriatrics and women. It’s time to go, man.’
‘What keeps you here then?’
He didn’t answer. He smoked his cigarette down to the filter, butted it and went to sleep, or pretended to. I drove on hoping the road would take me all the way to Jacko’s place. After a few kilometres I passed the entrance to one of the big properties Kevin had referred to. The gate was an impressive wrought iron structure set in solid brick pillars with a high cyclone fence running away for a hundred metres on either side. The sign over the gate read Western Holdings Pty Ltd and carried a website address. A flagpole with a blue and yellow flag hanging limply in the still air sprouted just inside. The road leading from the gate was tarred, with garden beds on both sides. In the far distance the fading sunlight bounced off gleaming roofs.
The road climbed suddenly and from the crest I got a good view of the Western Holdings property. It seemed to go on forever and to be very orderly with dams and irrigation channels and sheds at regular intervals. I saw cows and big paddocks with crops I couldn’t identify and several pieces of heavy machinery. Whatever they produced there was on a large scale and capital intensive.
I opened my mouth to ask Kevin about it but he let out a snore. My eyes flicked to the fuel gauge, which was hovering just above empty. I deliberately steered into a pothole and let the Pajero bounce. Kevin jerked awake and swore.
‘What the fuck . . .’
‘We’re almost out of fuel. How much further is it?’
He peered through the dusty windshield. ‘Have you passed the Yank place?’
‘If you mean Western Holdings, yes.’
‘That’s what I mean. Five thousand fucking acres making money hand over fist. Dad’s crummy little dirt patch is about two k’s off. When you cross a scummy little creek you’re almost there.’
‘You don’t like the farm?’
‘I used to, when it was a farm. I loved it.’
The gauge read empty. To take my mind off it I said, ‘Tell me about it, Kevin.’
But his eyes were riveted on the gauge. ‘Dad’ll tell you all about it. And he’ll tell you about his insane idea to save the fucking world.’
* * * *
I couldn’t help making unfavourable comparisons between Jacko’s farm and the Western Holdings outfit. Jacko’s fences needed repair, his main track needed grading and his sheds were sway-backed. The farmhouse had once been a handsome, broad-verandahed building sheltered by spreading eucalypts but it wore a shabby defeated air created by peeling paint, faded brickwork and rusted iron. A battered ute stood under a makeshift canvas shelter and I pulled up beside it.
Kevin Brown jumped down and strode off towards the house without a word. The fuel gauge had flopped below empty and the motor died before I could turn it off. I climbed down and stretched. The Pajero was air-conditioned and comfortable but I’d driven for more hours than my mature limbs cared for. I stood in the long shadows cast by some spindly trees and worked my shoulders.
‘Left shoulder still a bit stiff, eh? I remember when you dislocated it in a dumper.’
I turned to see Jacko Brown standing a few paces away. His soft feet had made him a good boxer and a great jungle fighter.
‘Jacko,’ I said. ‘So this is what you traded in a contract with the Balmain Tigers for?’
We shook hands. His was as hard and rough as a mallee root. ‘This is it. A thousand acres.’
‘You’re behind the times, mate. It’s hectares now.’
‘Yeah, I keep forgetting. Great to see you, Cliff. Where’s Kevin?’
‘He took off inside.’ I reached into the 4WD for my bag. ‘I hope you’ve got some fuel here. I’ve used the last drop.’
‘Of course. Gallons.’
‘Litres.’
He laughed. ‘Fuck you. Come in and have a shower and a scotch.’
I shouldered the bag and we walked across the scruffy grass to the house. ‘I heard you went dry.’
‘I did, but I got some in for you.’
The temperature dropped welcomingly inside the house. I took off my sunglasses and adjusted to the reduced light. There was a broad passageway with rooms off to either side. The floor was polished hardwood but dusty. The carpet runner was frayed. We went through to a kitchen and sunroom stretching the width of the house at the back. The kitchen held a combustion stove, a big old-fashioned refrigerator and a microwave oven, plus a long pine table and chairs. Three pine dressers, antiques. The furniture in the sunroom was cane, old and with sun-faded cushions.
Jacko opened the back door and pointed. ‘Shower’s out there. I’ll just have a word with Kevin, then we can have a drink.’
The washhouse, combining a bathroom and laundry, was a fibro outhouse ten paces away. To shower you stood in a claw hammer bath. You hung your towel on a nail on the door. I showered quickly in cold water, dried off, changed my shirt and went back to the house. Jacko put ice in a bowl, got two glasses and a bottle of soda water, and put them on the low table in the sunroom.
‘Kevin’s shot through,’ he said. ‘Dunno where. I was going to give him a drink. I know he gets on it in town. Did you have any trouble with him?’
‘Not with him. A mate of his named Jimmy had a go.’
‘Did you hurt him?’
‘Not really. He’ll have a stiff neck and a bruised beer gut for a bit.’
‘Say when.’ He poured a solid slug of Johnny Walker red over ice. He put ice in his own glass and topped it with soda water. He handed me the drink. ‘Cheers.’
We sat and I drank and felt the whisky slide down my throat and lubricate my bones. As soon as we’d both had a swallow Jacko got to the point.
‘I’m trying to start a community bank,’ he said. ‘It’s the only way we’re going to survive out here. They’ve done it in other places and we can do it here, I reckon. Do you know anything about community banks, Cliff?’
‘I read something about one in Bendigo or somewhere but I was skimming. Safe to say I know nothing about them.’
I was treated to a half hour rundown on the theory and practice of community banking and the benefits it could bring to a depressed rural area. Typical of Jacko, he knew his subject. I remembered how he read up on farm management before he quit the big smoke.
I finished my drink about the time he finished talking. ‘You’ve got it by the balls,’ I said.
‘Internet. Marvellous thing. You on it?’
I shook my head.
‘That’s right. I tried to find your website. How can you conduct a business without being online?’
‘I manage. So what’s the problem? Not enough takers? You want me to scare people into coming in with you?’
The enthusiasm that had been in his voice ebbed away. ‘No, ‘course not. The problem is there’s someone trying to stop me.’
‘Stop you how?’
‘You name it—threatening notes and phone calls, sabotage of equipment, killing stock, spreading rumours . . .’
‘Like what?’
‘Like that I was drunk when Shirl got killed. Like that I molested Debbie and that’s why she left.’
Debbie was Jacko’s daughter, who I knew had gone to Adelaide. I didn’t know why. ‘That’s ridiculous. Who’d believe that?’
He slammed his tumbler down on the table so that the glass top cracked. ‘Shit! They don’t have to believe it. It just has to get around.’ He looked at me and grinned. ‘The word is I’m violent.’
I nodded.
‘I also got kicked out of the police force for corruption. See what I mean? People see Vic Bruce turning a blind eye to everything. Why would I be any different?’
‘I get it. But, mate, you live here. You must know everyone for miles around. You must have some idea who’d be behind it.’
He shook his head. ‘Too many to name. Tod Van Keppel? He’s the head of Western Holdings and chairman of the big producers’ committee. They’re trying to buy up the little men. There’s Shirl’s family and friends. Plus I’ve had run-ins with various people over the years. It’s part of country life.’
‘Have you talked to the copper?’
‘He’s useless. Just serving out his time. Have another drink. I’ll put something in the microwave. Steak and kidney pie do you?’
‘Sure.’
He went to the kitchen and I poured myself another scotch and added some of the ice cubes and water. Jacko was still moving with the same vigour he’d always displayed but he was looking old and tired. There was a lot of grey in his hair and the lines on his face were at least partly from worry and tension.
I was swilling the drink around when Kevin came stumping in through the back door. I raised my glass. ‘Your dad was going to offer you a drink.’
He sneered at me, picked up the bottle, uncapped it and took a long swig.
‘Tell him thanks,’ he said and went out the way he’d come in.
I had to wonder about Kevin.
Jacko came back with two heaped plates, a bottle of tomato sauce and some cutlery. He looked at the uncapped whisky bottle.
‘Kevin?’
I nodded.
‘Dunno what I’m going to do with that boy if I can’t get this bank idea up. He was fine when he worked in the bank. Gone to the dogs since. Dig in, Cliff.’
The massive hotel sandwich had taken the edge off my appetite but I ate as much as I could so as not to offend. Jacko drank his soda water and I made the whisky and water last through the food. It was pretty tasteless and needed the tomato sauce. Jacko ate even less than me and looking at him I realised that he’d lost weight. He was about the same height as me, 184 centimetres, and had fought as a middleweight in his late teens. He’d go welter now, easily.
‘Coffee?’ Jacko said.
‘Maybe in a bit. What d’you want me to do, Jacko?’
‘What you do for a living. Investigate. You can have a look at the sabotaged machinery and photos of the dead stock. I can show you the notes and I’ve got recordings of the phone calls. You can talk to the people I’ve mentioned and see if anything occurs to you. Sort of sniff around.’
‘I can do that, I suppose. But this’s foreign territory to me. I’m not sure that I can come up with anything. Just suppose I do suss out who’s responsible. What then?’
Jacko rubbed the grey bristles on his lean jaw. ‘I’d feel like shooting him, but I suppose I’d try to sort out his objection, get him onside. It’s so obvious that a community bank’s what’s needed here.’
‘Wouldn’t be obvious to the big boys, would it?’
‘It could be if it’s managed right. We could live and let live. It works in other parts of the country.’
‘What if it’s someone who’s not against the idea but just hates your guts? Would you step aside and let someone else head the thing up?’
‘I hadn’t thought of that, but I guess I would. It’s the idea that matters, not me.’
It was the sort of answer I’d have expected. He hadn’t changed from the straight-as-a-die character he’d always been. ‘You’d better fill me in on your financial situation.’
‘I’m going to pay you.’
‘I don’t mean that! I mean what sort of pressure are you under money-wise—mortgage and all that? How much time’ve you got? How badly has this. . . campaign damaged your business?’
‘Sorry, mate. Shouldn’t have jumped in like that. I haven’t got a mortgage. Uncle Joe owned the place outright. I’ve borrowed from time to time for equipment and stock but nothing much. When the bloody bank said it was going to close I cleared my overdraft. I’d be buggered if I was going to deal with a bank in Sydney’ He leaned forward.
‘That’s the whole point. Those central office blokes don’t know anything about what it’s like out here. You get good years and bad. People help each other, at least they used to. That’s the sort of. . . commodity those bean counters can’t understand.’
It occurred to me that Jacko’s sound financial position might be a cause of envy and have triggered the problem. I asked him about his employees.
‘Only three, plus Kevin, who’s pretty well useless these days. Old Harry Thompson’s been here since Uncle Joe’s time. He can still do a day’s work. Then there’s Syd Parry and Lucas Milner. I suppose you’d call Lucas the head man. Aboriginal. Best man with stock for miles around.’
Maybe a race issue as well, I thought. There were plenty of possibilities, too many, but I agreed to do whatever I could to help.
Jacko thanked me, made a pot of coffee and I spiked mine with some scotch. I was weary and was pretty sure I’d sleep well but a nightcap never hurts. We were winding it up when there was a grinding crash outside.
The food and drink had slowed me down and Jacko beat me to the door, switching on a light as he went through. The area in front of the house was floodlit. Kevin had smashed the ute into a gum tree and was sitting slumped in the driver’s seat.
Jacko ran out, opened the door and reached for him.
‘Don’t touch me, you bastard,’ Kevin yelled. ‘Leave me alone, you fucker.’ He scrambled out, lost his balance and had to lean on the hood of the car. There was a gash on his forehead spilling blood down his face and onto his shirt. He tried to swing a punch at Jacko but missed by a mile and sagged back.
‘Kev, son, I just want to help you. I. . .’
‘Help me? You can help me by selling this excuse for a farm and getting us out of here. I hate this place. I hate you…’
His shoulders jerked and he burst into tears. Jacko moved towards him again but Kevin fended him off and staggered away in the direction of the washhouse. He stumbled but managed to stay more or less upright. Jacko looked helplessly after him and then turned his attention to the ute. I joined him and together we tugged at the crumpled radiator and mudguard.
‘No harm done,’ Jacko muttered. ‘I’m more worried about him.’
‘I’ll have a look at him.’
Kevin had stripped off his shirt, wet it under a tap and was wiping blood from his face. The cut was seeping now more than running and didn’t look too deep. He was still very drunk and having trouble remaining upright.
‘You all right, Kevin?’
‘Fuck off.’
I took him by the shoulders and sat him down hard on the edge of the bath. His cigarettes were in his shirt pocket and his lighter was on the floor. I got one out, stuck it in his mouth and lit it.
‘Calm down,’ I said. ‘You’re not the first kid to get some bad breaks.’
‘The fuck would you know?’
‘Where’d you get the booze? I thought you said you didn’t have any.’
He squinted through the smoke. ‘None of your fuckin’ business.’
‘You’re right. If I was you I’d have a shower and drink a gallon of water. And you’ll still feel like shit in the morning.’
I left him there and went into the house. Jacko was standing in the sunroom with the whisky bottle in his hand. He shook his head and capped it. ‘Wouldn’t help, would it?’
‘Probably not.’
‘That’s another thing those arseholes don’t know about—the effect all this shit has on families. I know what you’re thinking, Cliff. But it couldn’t be Kevin.’
* * * *
I examined the threatening notes which had been placed near Jacko’s front gate. They were word processed and accurate as to spelling and grammar, but it doesn’t take much education to write things like ‘Drop your plans or else’. I looked at the photographs of the dead animals, but a dead sheep to me is just something on the way to being chops as a dead cow is a T-bone in the making. And a dead horse is one I won’t lose money on at Randwick. Jacko had retrieved the bullets. All I learned from them was that a heavier calibre weapon had been used on the cows and horses than on the sheep.
There was no point in going undercover in Carter’s Creek. Every man and his dog knew who I was and why I was there. I didn’t even try to make myself agreeable. I figured that people would talk to me whether they wanted to or not, because anyone who didn’t would come under suspicion. As a strategy it worked pretty well. I phoned the Western Holdings office and got an appointment with Tod Van Keppel without any trouble.
I rolled up to the elaborate gate with a tankful of Jacko s petrol, spoke my piece to the intercom device and the gate swung open. Easy as pie. In contrast to the rundown look of the Brown farm this place was spick and span. The fences looked immaculate, hedges were trimmed and the grass was well watered. The buildings—barns or whatever the big ones were—and sheds had fresh coats of paint and every shining galvanised iron roof serviced a large water tank.
I drove a couple of kilometres past all this operational efficiency to a sprawling ranch-style building that seemed to double as a residence and office. The road looped around in front of it with a dozen parking places marked out in white paint. The parked vehicles, a couple of 4WDs, a Tarago van, a ute, a station wagon and a gleaming silver-grey Mercedes, were all newish and well maintained. Dusty and travel-stained and with its second-hand roof-rack, Glen’s Pajero looked shabby beside them.
I followed a sign in the form of a finger with the word ‘Office’ printed on it in a Gothic script around the side of the building to a set of steps. The glass door with a louvre blind on the inside carried a sign reading ‘Please enter’ in the same script. I did, and stepped into air-conditioned comfort—thick, pale carpet, cool white walls, comfortable-looking chairs and a large reception desk. The woman behind the desk was thirtyish, blondish and good-looking.
‘Mr Hardy,’ she said. ‘Please sit down. Mr Van Keppel is running a little late. He’ll see you in ten minutes. In the meantime, coffee?’
‘Thank you.’
I wanted to see if she made it herself. Thought not. She pressed a button and a few minutes later another woman appeared carrying a tray with a coffee pot and all the fixings. She put it on the low table in front of me, poured a cup and lifted the lid on silver vessels containing milk and sugar.
I said, ‘Thank you,’ again and felt as if I should tip her.
Almost as soon as I took a swallow the receptionist said, ‘Mr Van Keppel will see you now. Please take your coffee in with you.’
I’m too old a hand to fall for that. Balancing a cup in one hand is no way to meet someone you want to be forceful with. I replaced the cup on the tray and went through the polished teak door. The office was surprisingly small and surprisingly tasteful. I’d been expecting something Texan in style, but it was more modest—standard size desk, filing cabinet and bookshelf. No wet bar in sight, no conversation pit. It was about twenty notches up on my office in Darlinghurst but I felt comfortable in it. Watch yourself, Cliff, I thought. That’s how he wants you to feel.
Van Keppel was a medium sized man with thinning sandy hair and an outdoors look—weather-roughened skin, faded grey eyes and work-enlarged hands. He came around the desk and we shook. Strong grip, but not too strong.
‘Sit down.’ The accent was South African touched with something else, maybe Australian. ‘I know you’re working for Jack Brown, looking into the trouble he’s had. I agreed to see you because I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea if I hadn’t, but. . .’ He spread the big hands. ‘I don’t know how I can help you.’
‘I take it you could buy Jacko out?’
That surprised him. ‘Is he thinking of selling?’
I smiled. ‘No, I just wanted to see how the idea struck you.’
He nodded and didn’t say anything. He was good. A people manager.
‘Would a community bank be a thorn in your side?’
‘It’d depend on its policies and its size. But I would think not. We could get along.’
‘We?’
‘The larger operations.’
‘Who are well organised.’
‘I hope so.’
‘Wouldn’t it be tidier if you mopped up the small-timers?’
‘Yes.’
‘Couldn’t you have helped the Carter’s Creek bank to stay open?’
‘Probably.’
‘Why didn’t you?’
‘We bank in Sydney.’
‘No feeling of obligation to the area, to the community?’
‘Western Holdings sees itself as part of the global community, Mr Hardy, and—’
‘Which is no community at all.’
He went on as if I hadn’t spoken. ‘—and our obligation is to our shareholders.’
And that was about that. We batted it around for a few minutes without me scoring any runs. We shook hands again and I left. The coffee had gone, which was a pity. I’d have drunk it cold. It was good coffee.
I talked to old Harry Thompson, Syd Parry and Lucas Milner but got nothing useful from them. They all seemed fond of Jacko and worried about their jobs. None was particularly interested in the community bank idea one way or the other. They took it in turns to drive into Cobar to bank and seemed quite happy with the arrangement. Thompson and Parry were single and occupied fibro sleep-outs in a paddock behind the farmhouse. Milner lived with his wife and child in a house he’d built by the creek a kilometre away. Jacko had made a subdivision for him and he owned the acre block freehold. When I asked him if this was his country he smiled.
‘No, Mr Hardy. I was brought up in Redfern. I came out here ten years ago to get away from all that shit.’
‘What d’you mean?’
He rolled a cigarette, lit it and blew smoke. ‘I mean all that political shit. I believe in a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work and that’s all I fuckin believe in.’
Over the next few days I drove around the district talking to various people. I had a chat to Sergeant Vic Bruce, who’d heard some talk about the threats to Jacko but didn’t seem very interested.
‘Town’s dying, Hardy.’ He laughed, signalling a joke coming. ‘And I’m dying to get out of it.’ I guessed he’d used the line a few times before.
Roger and Betty Fairweather, the parents of Jacko’s late wife, were guarded. Without actually saying so, they implied that they blamed Jacko for their daughter’s death. But I got the feeling that it wasn’t a strong emotion, more an expression of loss than an accusation. Her two brothers, who’d owned a smallish farm carved out of the original property, had recently sold to one of the big operators and moved away. They’d gone before the threats started.
I was running out of suspects. I kept an eye on Kevin but, apart from reluctantly doing some desultory work on the property, he spent most of his time in the pub drinking with his mates. He had a motive—the hope that his father would sell up. But as he seemed to be relying on Jacko to stake him in some way and didn’t have the gumption to get away on his own, it seemed unlikely he’d have been able to mount the campaign.
I mostly steered clear of the pub, especially when the old Bedford truck that belonged to Kevins mate Jimmy was parked outside, and that was most of the time. I didn’t fancy another run-in with Jimmy. But I did manage a talk over a beer with Ted Firth. I pumped him a bit, asking about word processor users and people who might oppose the community bank idea. I had another of his wife’s massive sandwiches, but otherwise I got sweet f.a.
* * * *
Jacko seemed to perk up although I told him I wasn’t making progress. It seemed he was and apparently he’d had a good response to a call for a meeting in town in a couple of days time to discuss the bank proposal.
‘I’ve got an offer of state government support,’ he told me after we’d demolished another of his microwaved dinners and I was working on a scotch and water. ‘Well, a sort of expression of interest, you might call it. But it’s something, and maybe I can swing some of the waverers with it.’
He’d told me how the bank could be funded on the basis of the value of the properties the shareholders held and how capital could be raised and invested. That sort of talk bores me and I’d barely listened but I gathered that those coming into the scheme would be staking their futures on its success.
I yawned. I hadn’t done any investigating that day but I’d chopped some wood and scythed some long grass—the sort of things city slickers do when they visit the country. Do once. ‘Risky, is it?’
He shook his head. ‘Not if it’s done right. Unless we get some capital and modernisation into these farms, and kick the country towns back into life, we’re going under anyway. I have to make them see that somehow.’
Jacko had convened a meeting to be held in the school hall two nights away. He asked me if I’d go with him to meet some of his supporters.
‘I’m more interested in meeting your detractors.’
‘There’ll be some of them as well.’
I agreed to go and I filled in the daylight hours tramping around the farm, fishing without success in the creek and working my way through a few of the paperbacks in Jacko’s scanty library. In with the novels and non-fiction were a few expensive hardbacks which turned out to be school prizes for Kevin. He’d attended a boarding school in Canberra and had won prizes for geography and economics in his HSC year and for a few other subjects earlier on.
When I was sure he was well out of the way I sneaked into his room and looked it over. No computer, no rifles, just the usual young person’s detritus of clothes, sporting goods, magazines and keepsakes. A framed photograph lay face down on the chest of drawers, I turned it over, being careful not to disturb the dust that had gathered around it. It was a family picture—Jacko and Shirley as the proud parents of teenagers Debbie and Kevin. At a guess it had been taken two or three years back. Kevin’s expression was cheerful and hopeful, not the miserable scowl he wore nowadays.
Kevin’s sporting trophies—for football, basketball and tennis—lay in a jumbled heap in his closet along with a pair of football boots and a racquet with a couple of broken strings. It depressed me to look at them and I guessed they had the same effect on Kevin.
We set off in the Pajero shortly after 6 pm, Jacko and me to attend the meeting and Kevin to meet his mates in the pub. Father and son had had another argument and the atmosphere in the car was chilly. Kevin lolled in the back smoking. I didn’t care but Glen was fiercely anti and I wondered how long the smell would linger.
We passed the Western Holdings gate and began the descent towards the road that led into Carter’s Creek. The light was dimming and I squinted to adjust my eyes to it.
‘Something wrong, Cliff?’
‘No, just getting used to the light.’
I heard a derisive snort from the back seat.
‘Shut up!’ Jacko snapped.
The tension between the two had obviously been building and I hoped it wouldn’t break in my presence. I slowed for a bend. I heard a thump on the roof and thought it was a stone, then a hole appeared in the windshield and I heard a whistling sound and another thump behind me. I swore and swerved and headed for a clump of trees twenty metres ahead. I braked hard and threw up a cloud of dust.
‘Jesus,’ Jacko said. ‘Jesus Christ.’
We’d both been under fire in jeeps in Malaya. We knew what had happened and how close the second shot had come to us.
Jacko turned around. ‘Kev, are you.. . ? Oh God, he’s hit.’
We jumped out and opened the back doors. Kevin lay slumped in his seatbelt. The front of his shirt was dark with blood and a thick trickle of it ran down the vinyl to the floor. His normally tanned face was pale and his eyes were closed.
Jacko climbed in, released the belt catch and lowered Kevin to the seat. He tore the wet shirt open and peeled it back. ‘Thank Christ,’ he said. ‘Shoulder. But he’s losing blood fast. Get going, Cliff. There’s a doctor in town. I’ll try to stop the bleeding. Go!’
I slammed the back doors, got behind the wheel and gunned the motor. My heart was pumping and my eyes watered as dust blew in through the hole in the windshield. I had the Pajero up to top speed within fifty metres and fought to control it on the loose dirt. Ease up, I thought. No point in killing all three of us. I dropped the speed and concentrated on keeping a steady pace.
‘How is he?’
Jacko didn’t answer.
I drove as fast as the road condition, the broken windshield and consideration for Kevin allowed. Jacko used my mobile to call the doctor, who said it sounded as if Kevin would need the helicopter ambulance service.
‘Do it!’ Jacko said.
As I drove I couldn’t help thinking that this took Kevin off my list of suspects. We got to town and Jacko directed me to the doctor’s house. He was waiting with a gurney and we wheeled Kevin inside.
‘How long till the helicopter gets here?’ Jacko asked.
The doctor, a youngish thin man with a beard and a harassed manner, shook his head. ‘Hard to say, Jack. They’ll be as quick as they can. At least the weather’s okay for night flying. Say an hour. Let’s get a good look at him.’
We helped to cut Kevin’s shirt away and remove the pads Jacko had made by ripping up his own shirt.
‘How many gunshot wounds have you dealt with, doctor?’ I asked.
‘This is my first. Stand back and let me clean it.’
The wound was seeping rather than pumping blood but Kevin had lost all colour.
‘Pulse is weak,’ the doctor said.
Jacko pounded his fist against the wall. ‘Jesus, when I find out who did this
‘Don’t forget the shot was probably meant for you or maybe me. Kevin was just unlucky.’
‘The bullet’s still in there,’ the doctor said, talking to himself, ‘along with some metal and fibres from the shirt. That’s a worry.’
Jacko snarled, ‘Can’t you get it out?’
‘This isn’t the movies, Mr Brown.’
He kept cleaning the wound and monitoring Kevin’s pulse. Jacko wiped his son’s face a few times as if he could restore life and colour to it. Kevin looked very young.
We heard the beat of propellers outside and Jacko muttered, ‘Thank Christ.’
We wheeled the gurney out and the paramedics took over. They lifted Kevin into the helicopter and began working on him. Jacko hovered, asking questions and swearing when he got no answers. Eventually one of the paramedics broke away and beckoned him.
‘Better come with us, mate.’
‘How the fuck is he?’
‘Blood loss and shock but he’s young and strong. Good chance, I reckon. Let’s go.’
Jacko climbed in without a backward glance and the helicopter lifted off, leaving me standing with the doctor beside the empty blood-smeared gurney.
‘Thanks, doctor,’ I said. ‘Where’s the base?’
‘Cobar. Won’t take long. He should be all right. I’ll have to report a gunshot wound. Can you give me the details? It’s Hardy, isn’t it?’
‘That’s right, but your report’ll have to wait.’
* * * *
I pulled up outside the school where a group of people, men and women, were milling about. Some were smoking, all looked impatient. I’d met a few of them in my snooping about but most of them were unknown to me. One of the men I’d spoken to in the pub along with Ted Firth approached me.
‘What’s up?’
I told him and the news passed around and they pressed closer to get more details but they had all I knew very quickly. There was more smoking and clucking of sympathy and shaking of heads and they drifted away. I wondered who, if anyone, was missing. Running out of likely suspects, I was beginning to wonder about Jacko’s supposed friends, but there was no one to ask. I went back to my car and opened the door. The interior light came on and I noticed a mark in the upholstery of the back seat. I opened the back door and leaned in, trying to make sure I didn’t get blood on me. There was a hole in the backrest about dead centre and a couple of centimetres from the top. I probed it and scooped out a bullet. It had to be the shot that had broken the windshield and passed between Jacko and me. I examined it under the light. I’m no expert but it looked to be a different calibre again from the bullets that had killed Jacko’s horse and sheep.
‘Hey, you. Arsehole!’
I put the bullet in my pocket and spun around. Big Jimmy was coming towards me from the school. He walked steadily, not drunk this time, and he carried a short length of heavy chain.
‘I’ve been lookin forward to meeting you again, mate,’ he growled.
He jumped closer before I could speak and swung the chain. It missed me fractionally and clattered against the Pajero. The repairs to Glens car were going to cost me a bundle. I backed away and he came at me again, swinging. The chain passed over my head as I ducked low. I felt something under my hand and picked it up—a rusted, broken star picket. Jimmy came on fast and swung straight. I raised the stake and the chain wrapped around it. Jimmy grunted, hung onto the chain and lurched towards me, off balance. I braced myself and drove forward. Jimmy’s grip slackened and I hammered him high on the chest with the stake.
He went down and I straddled him with the stake pressed across his throat.
‘Give it away, Jimmy. You’re an amateur. With me it’s a job.’
He swore a few times and I increased the pressure. ‘I haven’t got time to waste on you,’ I said. ‘Might interest you to know your mate Kevin’s on his way to hospital with a bullet in him.’
All resistance went out of him. ‘What? What d’you mean?’
I was getting tired of squatting and pressing so I eased up and away. ‘What I said. Someone shot at us coming in. Kevin got hit.’
He shook his head and climbed slowly to his feet. I was still holding the stake and chain but there was no fight in him now and I dropped them.
‘Is he all right?’
I shrugged. ‘Dunno. His dad’s gone in the helicopter with him.’
Jimmy rubbed his chest, which must have been heavily bruised. ‘Shit, poor Kev.’
I began to walk away when an idea occurred to me and I turned back. ‘How long were you hanging around there?’
‘Hour or so. Bit more. Look, I’m sorry, mate. I—’
‘Forget it. You might be able to help me. Did anyone arrive late at the meeting or look strange?’
Jimmy wasn’t the brightest. ‘How d’you mean?’
‘Rushed, worried, anxious.’
‘Aw, a couple come late.’
‘Who?’
‘Brucie Perkins . . . and Lenny Rogers come roaring up.’ What I was getting at slowly seeped through to him but he shook his head. ‘No, no way. They’re both good mates of Kev’s dad. Good mates.’
‘All right. I’ve got to go. Maybe you should go to the pub and let Kevin’s friends know. You might want to ring the hospital or something.’
‘Yeah, yeah, I could do that. Thanks, mate, and look, like I said, I—’
‘Don’t forget your chain,’ I said.
I drove back to the Brown farm with cold air whistling through the windshield and an idea buzzing in my head.
I phoned the hospital and was told that Kevin was in a stable condition. In the morning I told old Harry and the others what had happened and how Kevin was. I guessed that Jacko would be back as soon as his son was clearly out of danger.
I drove into town and gave the doctor the details on the shooting, then I located Vic Bruce, the policeman, and did the same. That occupied the early part of the morning. By eleven o’clock I was in the pub talking to Ted Firth.
‘Terrible thing, that,’ he said.
I agreed, bought us both a beer and leaned forward conspiratorially. ‘How do you feel about the community bank idea, Ted?’
‘I’m all for it. Could set the place up again. Yep, I’ve agreed to kick in.’
‘Bit of a risk, isn’t it?’
‘Not doing any good as it is.’
‘I believe Bruce Perkins and Len Rogers are onside?’
‘Yeah. Great mates of Jacko’s.’
I sipped some beer. ‘I was hoping to meet them last night, but. . . Tell me a bit about them.’
‘Like what?’
‘Oh, I dunno. What sort of blokes they are, how their farms’re doing. You know.’
‘Both doing it a bit hard, I suppose, but I know they’ve agreed to come in on the bank thing. Brucie tried to modernise, spent some money on a computer and the internet and that. Dunno what good it did him. Lenny’s a good bloke, battler. Oh, Brucie’s like you and Jacko, ex-army. Good bit younger, of course. Vietnam.’
I nodded and switched the subject to Kevin and then to the world at large. After that it was simply a matter of sitting down with the telephone, a pot of coffee and a notepad. You can find out practically anything you want about anybody nowadays if you know how to go about it. I learned that Bruce James Perkins had been in Vietnam in 1966-67 as a national serviceman. A member of the 5th Battalion, he’d been promoted to corporal, commended for bravery in the field and in training he’d had out-standing results in rifle shooting. An extensive credit check showed that his property was heavily mortgaged, that he had numerous and weighty credit card debts and recurrent and pressing tax liabilities. He was in arrears on his rates and struggling to pay his telephone bills. Earlier in the year he’d bought a state of the art computer and printer on his American Express card which had since been cancelled. He was the licensed owner of two rifles. Plus one, I thought as I jotted this down.
* * * *
Kevin was declared out of danger and Jacko came back the next day.
‘Jimmy and Rosie are going in today to keep him company and bring him back when he’s fit to travel,’ Jacko said.
‘Rosie?’
‘Rosie Williams, local girl. Good people. Apparently she and Kevin have been keeping company when he wasn’t on the piss with his mates. News to me.’
We were in town. Jacko had got a lift from Cobar and I’d driven in to get him. We went to the pub where I had a beer and Jacko had tonic water and bitters. It seemed as good a time and place as any to tell him.
‘I think I know who’s behind your trouble.’
I laid it out for him. At first he was sceptical, then his face fell into serious, angry lines as the pieces joined together.
‘It’s circumstantial,’ I said.
Jacko drained his glass. ‘I hate to say it, but it looks pretty convincing. Only one way to find out.’
I nodded and took the three bullets from my pocket. ‘You could tell him I’ve had these examined and know what kind of rifle they were fired from. Bluff.’
Jacko took the bullets and we went out to the ute. I’d ordered a new windshield from Cobar—Syd Parry said he could fit it—but it was going to take a few days to arrive.
Before we started I put my hand on Jacko’s shoulder. ‘If it is him, and he admits it, what’ll you do?’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t want you doing anything stupid. Maybe we should take Vic Bruce along.’
‘No. I promise I won’t kill him, but that’s all I’ll promise.’
Jacko drove. We were silent, each with our own thoughts. We reached the Perkins farm, which looked even more rundown than Jacko’s. We pulled up outside the house and a woman came to the door.
“lo, Jack.’
‘Iris,’ Jacko said. ‘Where’s Brucie?’
‘Water tank. Pump’s playing up. Will you have a cuppa?’
‘Maybe, in a minute or two.’
I nodded a mute greeting to the woman and followed Jacko around the house and down a path to where a big water tank stood beside a clump of stunted apple trees. A man in overalls was bent over the pump fixture. He straightened up when he saw us coming. Big bloke. He had a heavy pair of pliers in his hand and I let my fingers curl around the butt of the .38 in my pocket. Then I saw that Jacko had a tyre iron held against his leg and I released my grip on the pistol.
Jacko stopped two metres short of Perkins. He fished in his shirt pocket with his left hand and held up the bullets. ‘My mate here’s had these examined. Know what, he reckons they come from a Martini-Henry and a Savage. Not sure about the other one. How about it, Brucie? Like to bring ‘em out and let us do a match-up?’
Perkins’ weather-beaten face went pale. ‘Shit, Jacko, I never meant to . . .’
It was enough for Jacko. He stepped forward and the left he threw was as fast and straight as back in his Police Boys Club days. In one motion he tossed away the tyre iron and followed up with a jolting right that took Perkins on the side of the jaw, twisted his head around and dropped him.
Jacko knelt with his knee pressing down on Perkins’ chest. ‘Now tell me why,’ he said. He picked up the pliers Perkins had dropped. ‘That’s if you want to keep any teeth.’
* * * *
It was all about money, the way it mostly is. Bruce Perkins had agreed to back the community bank to the hilt while at the same time he was in negotiation with one of the big holders to sell his property. The community bank idea moved faster than the negotiation so he was faced with the prospect of having to declare how little equity in his farm he had and how big his obligations were. With that known, the buyer would get his place for a song, so he tried to block the community bank. He told Jacko he’d deliberately hit the roof with the first shot as a sighter and had put the second one between us. He didn’t know there was anyone in the back.
‘D’you believe him?’ I said.
‘He can hit a hopping kangaroo in the head at two hundred yards.’
‘What’re you going to do about him?’
‘Dunno.’
Jacko insisted on paying me a fee and paying for the repairs on the Pajero. He got the community bank set up and it’s doing fine. Kevin’s working in it and plans to marry his girlfriend. I wouldn’t be surprised if the bank’s helping Bruce Perkins to survive. Jacko’s that sort of bloke.