Death of an Old Goat (19 page)

All in all it was a tricky, uncomfortable business. One thing Royle did not like was taking risks: he had a devout belief in the idea that one didn't hit someone bigger than oneself, nor try bullying someone more powerful. These precepts had for him a force almost biblical, and it was due to this canny philosophy that Royle's career, in spite of a few regrettable set-backs, had on the whole been one of onwards and upward, in spite of his evident and invincible stupidity. But in the present case, he could see that he was in the middle of a situation in which he could very well land himself (as he put it in his own mind) in the shits. And what made it worse was that he could not, at the moment, see any possibility at all of blaming anyone else for it.

A little red light on his dashboard showed one of his men trying to get through. He stubbed out his cigarette in an already overful ashtray and picked up his receiver.

‘Royle here.'

‘Brady, sir. There's a car just left the Nolan property — Murrawidgee. Went very quiet and slow for the first few minutes, then speeded up when he was away from the house.'

Royle breathed a sigh of relief. He had been tormented by the thought that he, as well as several of his men, would be sitting like dummies around the landscape all night without so much as a cheep from any of the people they were watching. He was no wiser about
what
was going to happen, but at least he was now pretty sure that something was.

‘Fine,' he said. ‘Everything else quiet over there? No one awake in the house?'

‘No lights, anyway. I'm too far away to hear anything, but there's definitely no signs. What do I do now?'

‘You can come away. You might as well get here as soon as you can — you could be useful.'

‘Look, cobber,' said Brady in a practised whine, ‘I'm stuck up a bloody tree with bloody magpies dive-bombing
me every few seconds, and me car is three miles away where you told me to put it. It'll be bloody hours before I can get over to you.'

‘Oh, you can bugger off home,' said Royle impatiently. ‘No bloody initiative, that's your trouble. The others will be coming, so we can do without you and good riddance.'

No sooner had he cut off Brady, and put through a mental prayer to the Eternal Superintendent that the magpies be allowed to get his balls, than the rest of his men started coming through. At least they gave Royle the satisfaction of knowing that he really was on to something — some sort of conspiracy, for whatever purpose. They all had a similar tale to tell. The men they were watching had driven off, usually in a decidedly surreptitious manner; some had coasted until they were away from the house, some had kept their lights off as long as that was feasible, some had gone to the lengths of walking to a car parked well away from the house. None of his subordinates seemed at all anxious to join him, though Constable Rudge, the most junior, assured him that he'd be there as soon as he possibly could — granted that he was twenty-five miles away, two miles from his car, and he
had
heard a nasty knocking in the engine on the way out from town. It was by now getting through to Royle that a certain reluctance was being manifested.

The last to contact him was Sergeant Malone, apparently ensconced in the middle of a rhododendron bush, or else rubbing a leafy branch across the mouth of his microphone to give his story dramatic verisimilitude. The McKay and Lullham cars, he said, had come out of their turning in procession, and had sped off in the direction of Kenilworth. McKay had obviously liased with Lullham on the way, and the two cars had kept rather nervously close to one another as long as they were on the gravel track leading to the main road.

‘So they'll be with you in about twenty minutes I'd
guess,' concluded Sergeant Malone.

‘And so will you,' said Royle sharply. ‘Get in the car, and keep well behind them. Above all, don't for God's sake let them know they're being followed.'

‘Aw, chief, give over,' whined Malone. ‘You know the wife doesn't like me being out late at night. And the rheumatics are playing me up something cruel tonight . . .'

‘Get here fast,' said Royle.

‘I've got a doctor's certif . . .'

Royle cut him off with an expletive which sounded into the darkness. He knew what was up now. They'd all talked it over, and they'd decided he was making a fool of himself.
THEY'D
decided — the incompetent nincompoops. They couldn't even recognize a parking offence unless you rubbed their noses in it. And then they'd also decided they wanted no more part in the business than was absolutely necessary. He knew why. They were no keener than himself to get on the wrong side of the local nobility. True they were not in a position to make such a good thing out of it as he was. Mere chickenfeed, really. Still, they could hope for the odd free beer, the condescending greeting in the street which so gratified the wife and sent her stock up with the neighbours. And every one of them knew that if promotion came — and on the whole no consideration of stupidity, corruption or physical incapacity could ever stop it coming — this would mean one more toe for them on the jolly old gravy train. The inferiority of their rank did not stop them having great expectations. So they'd decided to do their little bit and then skulk off home, leaving him well and truly in the rural lurch. That was loyalty for you! That was the spirit of the service! That was mateship!

Royle sat in the dark of his police car boiling with the virtuous indignation of one who has been played a well-deserved dirty trick. The more he thought about it, the less he thought the Australian police force deserved him. He was a damned fine officer, doing a damned fine job of
work, and cursed with the idlest bunch of inferiors you could meet in a month of Sundays. But before five minutes had passed he was interrupted in his halo-construction work when he perceived a pencil-thin light from a distant car. It was proceeding off the main road, and coming along the broad gravel track towards Kenilworth. A minute later there was another, taking the same route. Royle got out of his car, only remembering at the last moment not to bang the door shut. The twigs cracked under him, as well they might, but he darted into position under a large gum-tree, and stood with his body against the trunk, waiting and watching. He began in his mind to tot off the cars as they crept by.

The first to crawl past him along the track was Coogan from Fairlands, and then came Nolan from Murrawidgee, both of them driving cautiously and using only parking lights. At any other time he might have thought that they must be drunk to the point of incapability, this being the only state in which Australians willingly drive so slowly and hesitantly. But clearly this was different: here they were obviously out to hide their presence from the observation of someone at the main Turberville property, and perhaps from the residents of the houses of the younger married Turbervilles — or at any rate from the womenfolk at these places. Both cars, so far as he could see through the Stygian gloom of the night, contained only the driver. This was not business for women, then. But if this business wasn't drinking, what was it?

After a few minutes the Lullham car turned on to the Kenilworth track, closely followed by McKay's new Holden, a puce, green and purple monstrosity much admired in Drummondale. Lullham's driving was hesitant in the extreme, and Royle heard curses from McKay's vehicle, so presumably he was incommoded by the erratic stops and starts of the car in front. As that little procession faded into the distance two more cars came into evidence from the
main road. Both of these were comparatively well-driven — one belonged to Gordon from Glen Angus, the other to Dutton from Burraloo. Both were reasonably young men, and Gordon was not long out from Scotland, a thin, craggy, sarcastic man with a nasty tongue for what he regarded as incompetence or idleness (that is, for those qualities which Royle regarded as proper evaluation of difficulties and sensible conservation of energies). Royle had once copped the rough side of that tongue, and for the first time in his career came close to hitting a grazier. It was Royle's opinion that Gordon had never in his life touched anything stronger than whisky marmalade, and if he was invited it didn't seem likely that drinking was the order of the day. Dutton too, though he could knock it back on occasions, was not one of the beeriest of his breed, and was hardly likely to give up a night's rest for a mere booze-up when he could have as much as he might need more comfortably at home.

Lastly, driving not wisely or too well, came Pryce-Jones of Llanuwchllyn, a man so ordinary that nobody could find anything whatsoever to say about him except that he got very sentimental when drunk, and that his property was unpronounceable. That was the lot. Now the difficult bit began.

As the Pryce-Jones car, a fawn Cortina, disappeared along the dark dusty road towards Kenilworth, Royle emerged from his natural cover and skulked towards his station wagon. Opening up the back, he dragged from it an ancient police bicycle, which he then put on his shoulders and humped to the road. Earlier in the day he had checked and double-checked this antiquated machine, and had only been dissuaded from having a trial spin round the back garden by the thought that one of his daughters might see. Took you back, that bicycle did, he thought. This one hadn't been used for at least twenty years so far as he could see. Police bicycles had made him the man he was today — more
or less — them and Grafton's lager. Now he stealthily took it through the trees, set it four-square on the road, and heaved his bulk over the bar. This was the way to travel, was the thought that flashed through his mind; this brought back the old days in Newcastle when the blue uniform was still new on him and when he was first realizing that women who didn't find
him
attractive did find
him in it
moderately acceptable. This bicycle was part of his past, he thought, with an unaccustomed access of sentimentality.

His first conscious thought as he settled himself into the saddle was that, though he was well-padded in the posterior, this did not prevent the seat from feeling exceptionally hard. It just wasn't like driving the Holden. They built them tough in the seat in those days, he thought. Then, as he put his feet to the pedals and set off in stealthy pursuit of the cars he was suddenly struck with the notion that bicycling
was
the sort of skill you could forget. So far he had been imagining it was just like swimming, and that once thrown in the deep end all his old proficiency would return. And yet this seemed like an entirely new sensation. It couldn't just be that a gravel lane on a dark night without lights was not the best situation in which to take up the art again. There was also the question of his weight: it seemed to have been redistributed since he last rode. Or, to put it bluntly, it had increased. And as a consequence it certainly didn't seem as easy as it was to — oops — keep — oops — steady. He put his feet to the ground momentarily to right himself. If he couldn't improve on that performance it might have been quieter to stick with the car. He felt he would soon have to turn on his cycle-lamp. He had thought he'd be able to rely on moonlight alone, but the moon was far from full, and it didn't seem to be putting much effort into its shine. The path stretched ahead like a vague, shimmering river, shifting and changing. If he wasn't careful he'd be into the — ouch, damn, blast, Christ Almighty — into the ditch.

He got up stiffly, and switched on the little lamp at the front of his machine. Hesitantly and painfully he clambered back on. He wondered whether walking might not be better than this, but he hadn't walked more than ten yards at a time for so many years that he was reluctant to put his feet to the test. Slowly, waveringly, like an elderly drunk, he proceeded along the bumpy track. Every jerk told in every muscle of his body, and he infinitely regretted the friendly upholstery of his police Holden which contrived to muffle the worst effects of Australian roads. Certainly he was becoming aware of muscles he had forgotten existed, muscles which he had not used since he was kicking around in his carry-cot, muscles which had slept undisturbed as the Kraken virtually the whole length of his life. Tomorrow was going to be hell. Tomorrow was going to be hell for all those around him too. Tomorrow he was going to sleep stretched rigid on his bed, and woe betide anyone who demanded activity of him — let alone common civility. It was nearly a month since he had had his last sickie; this one would be a genuine one, so he'd spin it out.

He pushed his way forward, slowly, heavily. It was like being on a treadmill. Now he realized how ghastly that must be he was all the more in favour of bringing it back. At last his flapping trousers — he had, of course, forgotten that there were such things as trouser-clips — caught in the spokes, and after a tense moment of apparent suspension in mid-air, brought him down head first into a bank of loose gravel at the side of the road. For a moment he lay there, thinking his last moments were come, and wishing they would pass quickly and bring him into that policeman's Elysium he so richly deserved. Getting up, holding his side, and spitting genteelly and tentatively so as not to break the silence, he kicked his cycle to the side of the road, where some days later it was found by one of the Turberville grandchildren, who examined it as if it were a relic of a long-forgotten civilization but, failing to see to what use
it could be put, left it to rust where it was.

From now on, Royle would have to rely on his feet. He found that they did still put themselves one in front of the other in a fairly automatic way, leaving him time to think of the selfless way he was sacrificing his own comfort in the cause of justice. In little more than ten minutes he was in sight of Kenilworth, but even as he became conscious of its looming bulk, he realized that it was not there he should be making for. He strained his eyes to look for parked cars, but he could not make out any. That was what he had expected: if this was a matter which the various wives were to be kept out of, as seemed to be the case, the men would hardly meet in a place where they would certainly be heard by that redoubtable old trout Mrs Turberville. The question flitted across his mind: why were they being excluded, these formidable wives? Usually they were in on everything. Was it because they were too narrow-minded; because they were too sober; because they were too sensible? Even as he started to ponder this one he heard to his right, away in the distance, a light sound.