Cashin said, ‘Could you go over that again?’
Villani said, ‘Well, that’s it, you can go. Cashin stay.’
Hopgood and Dove left.
‘Joe,’ said Villani, ‘I don’t appreciate smart shit like that.’
He smoked, tapped ash into his plastic cup. Cashin looked away, watched the birds across the street. Sleep, shuffle, shit, fight.
‘For presiding over this cock-up, I am branded,’ said Villani.
‘It was my advice. What else could you do?’
‘You passed on Hopgood’s considered opinion. That’s what you did. Passed it on. I decided.’
Villani closed his eyes. Cashin saw his tiredness, the tiny vein pulsing in an eyelid.
‘I shouldn’t have brought you in,’ said Villani. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Bullshit. No sign of Bourgoyne’s watch?’
‘No. Probably flogged it somewhere else. They’re looking. They haven’t found Pascoe’s place in Sydney.’
‘Sydney detection at its best,’ said Cashin.
‘I wouldn’t point the finger,’ said Villani. ‘Not me.’
Silence. Villani went to the window, forced it open, shot his stub at the pigeons, crashed the window down.
‘I’ve got a little media appearance to do,’ he said. ‘How do I look?’
‘Ravishing,’ said Cashin. ‘Nice suit, ditto shirt and tie.’
‘Advised by experts.’ At the door, Villani said, ‘If it were me, I’d say as little as possible. Innocent stuff comes back to haunt you. And this cunt Hopgood, Joe. Don’t do him any favours, he’ll sell you without a blink.’
IT WAS mid-afternoon before Cashin’s turn.
In an overheated interview room, audio and video running, he sat on a slippery vinyl chair before two feds, a fat senior sergeant from ethical standards called Pitt and his puzzled-looking offsider Miller, and a man from the police ombudsman’s office.
Cashin took the first chance to say that he’d had to convince Villani to approve the operation.
‘Well, that’s a matter for another time,’ said Pitt. ‘Not the matter at hand.’
The feds, a man and a woman, both stringy like marathon runners, took Cashin through his statement twice. Then they picked at it.
‘And I suppose,’ said the man, ‘with hindsight, you’d see that as an error of judgment?’
‘With hindsight,’ said Cashin, ‘I see most of my life as an error of judgment.’
‘Are you taking the question seriously, detective?’ said the woman.
Cashin wanted to tell her to fuck off. He said, ‘In the same circumstances, I’d make the same decision.’
‘It resulted in the deaths of two young men,’ she said.
‘Two people died,’ Cashin said. ‘The courts will decide who’s to blame.’
Silence. The interrogators looked at one another.
‘What was your initial opinion of conducting an operation like this in heavy rain?’ said the woman.
‘You can’t choose the weather. You take what you get.’
‘But the wisdom of it? What was your opinion?’
‘I had no strong opinion until it was too late.’
It had been too late. He had waited too long.
‘And then you say you instructed Dove to call Hopgood and order the operation abandoned?’
‘I did.’
‘You believed you had the authority to order the operation abandoned?’ said the man from the ombudsman’s office.
‘I did.’
‘You still think so?’
‘I thought I was in overall command, yes.’
‘You thought? It wasn’t made clear who was in command?’
‘I’m in charge of the Bourgoyne investigation. This operation flowed from it.’
They looked at one another. ‘Moving on,’ said the woman. ‘You say you made four attempts to call it off?’
‘That’s correct.’
‘And they weren’t acknowledged?’
‘No.’
‘Dove asked for the calls to be acknowledged?’
Cashin looked away. He was in pain, thinking of home, whisky, bed. ‘Yes. Repeatedly. After the first message, Hopgood asked for a repeat, said he couldn’t hear us’
‘That surprised you?’
‘It happens. Equipment malfunctions.’
‘To go back to the moment you rounded the vehicle,’ said the male fed. ‘You said you heard shots.’
‘That’s correct.’
‘And you saw a muzzle flash beside the ute?’
‘Yes.’
‘You heard a shot or shots and then you saw the muzzle flash?’
Cashin thought: he’s asking whether Luke Ericsen was fired on and fired back.
‘An instant in a cloudburst,’ he said, ‘I heard shots, I saw a muzzle flash at the ute. The order, well…’
‘It’s possible the muzzle flash was Ericsen firing after the other shots?’ said Pitt.
‘I can’t make that judgment,’ Cashin said.
‘But is it possible?’
‘It’s possible. It’s possible the shotgun fired first.’
‘I’m sorry, are you changing your statement?’ The woman.
‘No. I’m clarifying.’
‘A person of your experience,’ said the male fed. ‘We’d expect a little more precision.’
‘We?’ said Cashin, looking into his eyes. ‘Does we mean you? What the fuck do you know about anything?’
That didn’t help. It was another hour before he could go home. He drove carefully, he was tired, nerves jangling. At the Kenmare crossroads, he remembered milk and bread and dog food, there was only a bit of the butcher’s sausage left. He pulled in to Callahan’s garage and shop.
The shop was unheated, smelling of sour milk and stale piecrust, no one behind the counter. He got milk, the last carton, went to the shelves against the wall to get dog food. One small can left.
‘Back again.’
Derry Callahan, oil smears on his face, was standing behind him, close up. He was wearing a nylon zipped-up cardigan, taking strain over his belly.
‘Good to see you blokes earnin yer fuckin money for a change,’ he said.
Cashin looked around, smelled alcohol and poisonous breath, saw Callahan’s pink-rimmed eyes, the greasy strands of hair hand-combed over his pale spotted scalp.
‘How’s that?’ he said.
‘Takin out those two Daunt coons. Pity it wasn’t a whole fuckin busload.’
There was no thought, just the flush. Cashin had the can of Frisky Dog Meaty Chunks in Marrow Gravy, in his right hand. He turned his hips and brought his arm around close to his body and hit Derry in the middle of his face, not a lot of travel, they were close. The pain made him think he had broken his fingers.
Callahan went backwards, two short steps, dropped slowly to his knees, at prayer, hands coming to his face, blood getting there first, dark red, almost black, it was the fluorescent lighting did that.
Cashin wanted to hit him again but he threw the carton of milk at him. It bounced off his head. He stepped over to kick Callahan but something stopped him.
At the vehicle, Cashin realised that he was still holding the dog food can. He opened his hand. The can was dented. He threw it onto the back.
Rebb heard him arrive, a beam of light, the dogs jumping, big ears flapping, running for him. He fondled their ears, hand hurting. Dogs went between his legs, came around for more.
‘Thought you’d buggered off,’ said Rebb. ‘Leaving me with your mad dogs and your debts.’
THE DOGS woke Cashin a good way out from dawn and, blind, he crossed the space, let them into the cold, dark room, went back to bed. They snuffed the kitchen for dropped food, gave up, jumped onto the bed, spoilt rotten.
Cashin didn’t care. They sandwiched him, pushed against him, lay their light heads on his legs. He went back to sleep, woke with a start, a sound in his memory, a scrape, metal against metal. Head raised, neck tense, he listened.