‘No sign of life when I come,’ said the man. ‘Dog didn’t bark.’
‘Been in trouble with the police, Dave?’
‘No. Never been in trouble.’
‘Could be a murderer,’ said Mrs Haig behind him. ‘Killer. Dangerous killer.’
‘Me, Mrs Haig,’ said Cashin, ‘I’m the policeman, I’m dealing with this. Dave, I’m going to drive you to the main road. Come back this way, you’ll be in serious trouble. Okay?’
‘Okay.’
Cashin took the two steps and gave the man back his coat. ‘Let’s go.’
‘Charge him!’ shouted Mrs Haig.
In the vehicle, Dave Rebb offered his hands to the dogs, he was a man who knew about dogs. At the T-junction, Cashin pulled over.
‘Which way you going?’ he said.
There was a moment. ‘Cromarty.’
‘Drop you at Port Monro,’ Cashin said. He turned left. At the turnoff to the town, he stopped. They got out and he opened the back for the man’s swag.
‘Mind how you go now,’ Cashin said. ‘Need a buck or two?’
‘No,’ said Rebb. ‘Treated me like a human. Not a lot of that.’
Waiting to turn, Cashin watched Rebb go, swag horizontal across his back, sticking out. In the morning mist, he was a stubby-armed cross walking.
‘NO DRAMA?’ said Kendall Rogers.
‘Just a swaggie,’ said Cashin. ‘You doing unpaid time now?’
‘I woke up early. It’s warmer here, anyway.’ She fiddled with something on the counter.
Cashin raised the hatch and went to his desk, started on the incident report.
‘I’m thinking of applying for a transfer,’ she said.
‘I can do something about my personal hygiene,’ Cashin said. ‘I can change.’
‘I don’t need protecting,’ she said. ‘I’m not a rookie.’
Cashin looked up. He’d been expecting this. ‘I’m not protecting you from anything. I wouldn’t protect anybody. You can die for me anytime.’
A silence.
‘Yes, well,’ Kendall said. ‘There are things here to be resolved. Like the pub business. You drive back at ten o’clock at night.’
‘The Caine animals won’t touch me. I’m not going to go to an inquiry and explain why I let you handle it.’
‘Why won’t they touch you?’
‘Because my cousins will kill them. And after that, they’ll be very nasty to them. Is that a satisfactory answer, your honour?’ He went back to the report but he felt her eyes. ‘What?’ he said. ‘What?’
‘I’m going to Cindy’s. Ham and egg?’
‘I’ll let you face the savage bitch? On a Friday morning? I’ll go.’
She laughed, some of the tension gone.
When she was at the door, Cashin said, ‘Ken, bit more mustard this time? Brave enough to ask her?’
He went to the window and watched her go down the street. She had been a gymnast, represented the state at sixteen, won her first gold medal. You would not know it from her walk. In the city, off duty, she went to a club with a friend, a photographer. She was recognised by a youth she had arrested a few months before, an apprentice motor mechanic, a weekend raver, a kicker and a stomper. They were followed, the photographer was badly beaten, locked in his car boot, survived by luck.
Kendall was taken somewhere, treated like a sex doll. After dawn, a man and his dog found her. She had a broken pelvis, a broken arm, six broken ribs, a punctured lung, damaged spleen, pancreas, crushed nose, one cheekbone stove in, five teeth broken, a dislocated shoulder, massive bruising everywhere.
Cashin returned to the paper work. You could get by without identification but Rebb had been employed, there might be some tax record. He dialled the number for Boorindi Downs. It rang for a while.
‘Yeah?’
‘Victoria Police, Detective Cashin, Port Monro. Need to know about someone worked on Boorindi Downs.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Dave Rebb.’
‘When’s that?’
‘1994 to 1996.’
‘No, mate, no one here from then. Place belongs to someone else now, they did a clear-out.’
‘What about Colin Blandy?’
‘Blands, oh yeah. I know him from before, he got the bullet from the Greeks, went to Queensland. Dead, though.’
‘Thanks for your time.’
Cashin thought that he had made a mistake, he should have fingerprinted Rebb. He had cause to, he had allowed sympathy to dictate.
Could be a murderer, said Mrs Haig. Killer.
He rang Cromarty, asked for the criminal investigation man he knew.
‘Got a feeling, have you?’ said Dewes. ‘I’ll tell them to keep a lookout.’
Cashin sat, hands on the desk. He had threatened Rebb with this, the fingerprinting, the long wait in the cells.
‘Sandwich,’ said Kendall. ‘Extra mustard. She put it on with a trowel.’
An ordinary shift went by. Near the end, the word came that the first electronic sweep found no David Rebb on any government database in the states and territories. It didn’t mean much. Cashin knew of cases where searches had failed to find people with strings of convictions. He clocked off, drove out to the highway, turned for Cromarty.
Rebb had walked twenty-three kilometres. Cashin pulled in a good way in front of him, got out.
He came on, a man who walked, easy walk, stopped, a tilt of shoulders, the tilted cross.
‘Dave, I’ve got to fingerprint you,’ Cashin said.
‘Told you. Done nothing.’
‘Can’t take your word, Dave. Can’t take anyone’s word. Got to charge you with trespass,’ Cashin said.
Rebb said nothing.
‘That’s so we can take your prints.’
‘Don’t lock me up,’ said Rebb, softly, no tone. ‘Can’t go in the cells.’
Cashin heard the fear in the man’s voice and he knew that once he would not have cared much. He hesitated, then he said, ‘Listen, you interested in work? Dairy cows, cow stuff. Do that kind of thing?’
Rebb nodded. ‘Long time ago.’
‘Want some work?’
‘Well, open to offers.’
‘And garden stuff, some building work maybe?’
‘Yeah. Done a bit of that, yeah.’
‘Well, there’s work here. My neighbour’s cows, I’m clearing up an old place, might rebuild a bit, thinking of it. Work for a cop?’
‘Worked for every kind of bastard there is.’
‘Thank you. You can sleep at my place tonight. There’s a shed with bunks and a shower. See about the job tomorrow.’
They got into the vehicle, Rebb’s swag in the back. ‘This how they get workers around here?’ he said. ‘Cops recruit them.’
‘All part of the job.’
‘What about the fingerprints?’
‘I’m taking your word you’re clean. That’s pretty dumb, hey?’
Rebb was looking out of the window. ‘Saved the taxpayer money,’ he said.
CASHIN WOKE in the dark, Shane Diab on his mind, the sounds he made dying.
He listened to his aches for a time, tested his spine, his hips, his thighs-they all gave pain. He pushed away the lovely warm burden of the quilts, put feet in the icy waiting boots, and left the room, went down the passage, through Tommy Cashin’s sad ballroom, into the hall, out the front door. It was no colder out than in, today the mist blown away by a strong wind off the ocean.
He pissed from the verandah, onto the weeds. It didn’t bother them. Then he went inside and did his stretching, washed his face, rinsed his mouth, put on overalls, socks, boots.
The dogs knew his noises, they were making throat sounds of impatience at the side door. He let them in and the big creatures snuffled around him, tails swinging.
Thirsty, he went to the fridge and the sight of the frosted beer bottles made him think he could drink a beer. He took out the two-litre bottle of juice, eight fruits it said. Only a dickhead would believe that.
He held the plastic flagon in both hands, took a long drink, a tall glass at least. He took the old oilskin coat off the hook behind the door, picked up the weapon. When he opened the door to the verandah, the dogs pushed through, bounded down the steps, ran for the back gate. They jostled while they watched him come down the path, shrugging into the coat as he walked. Gate open, they ran down the path, side by side, reached the open land and made for the trees, jumping over the big tufts of grass, extravagant leaps, ears floating.