Pride's Harvest (10 page)

“Maybe you're right,” said Malone. “But you don't have to play at being a cop, do you?”

As he got into the car beside Clements a man's voice said from the back of the crowd, “Why don't you go back where you belong?”

“Drive on,” Malone said quietly and Clements pulled the car out into the traffic again.

They said nothing more; then Clements was pulling the Commodore into the police station yard. As soon as they got out of the car they were aware of the tension amongst the half a dozen uniformed men in the yard. At first Malone thought they were waiting to say something to him and Clements; he stiffened, seeking some sort of answer to a question he hadn't yet heard. Then, as they reached the steps leading up to the back door of the rear annexe, Baldock, hatless, his face tight and red as if he were holding his breath, came out through the doorway. He stopped abruptly on the top step and looked down at the two Sydney men.

“Billy Koowarra's just hung himself.”

3

I

“LOOKS LIKE
he did it, don't you reckon?” said Dircks.

He and Malone were at lunch at the reserved table by the corner window. The dining-room was crowded, mostly with men but also with a few women. Narelle Potter had refurbished the big room, but its restored old-time charm fought a losing battle against the rough, loud bonhomie of the male diners. The women guests tried hard, but they were just whispers in the chorus of shouts, laughter and loud talk. Malone, as sometimes before, wondered how people could manage to eat and yet still make such a hubbub.

He caught what Dircks had just said in the moment before it was lost in the noise. “What?”

“He's the obvious suspect. I'm not saying shut the book on Sagawa's murder, but it might be better if we just let it die quietly.”

You're the one who's obvious.
“Why do you think Koowarra's the one who did it?”

“I didn't say that. I'm just suggesting you take advantage of what's happened.” Dircks dipped his handkerchief in his glass of water and sponged a spot of gravy off the lapel of his expensive suit. Everything he wore was expensive, but he didn't look comfortable in it, as if his wife or perhaps a daughter had bought his wardrobe and each morning he just put on what was laid out for him. He didn't look comfortable at the moment and Malone wondered if Chess Hardstaff had laid out instructions for him. “His suicide is tantamount to a confession. Use it. We know he'd been sacked, there was bad feeling between him and Sagawa.”

“How do you know that?”

“I
know.”
Dircks finished his wet-cleaning, picked up his knife and fork again. Whatever he felt
about
the two deaths, the murder and the suicide, his appetite had not been affected. He began to chew on a mouthful of steak that would have satisfied a crocodile.

“No court would accept a case built on that. There was no note of confession, he didn't say a word to any other prisoner or any officer.” Malone cut into his rack of lamb. The menu was written in English, no fancy French handles to the dishes, and the chef, Malone guessed, probably cooked with the Australian flag hanging over his stove. The dessert list, he had noted, contained such local exotica as bread-and-butter pudding, sherry trifle and lamington roll; somehow the national dish, passion-fruit pavlova, had missed out. “Frankly, Mr. Dircks, I don't think Koowarra killed Sagawa and I'm not going to waste my time following that line.”

Dircks picked up his napkin to wipe his mouth, noticed it was wet and gestured to a passing waitress for a fresh one. Malone had remarked that only he and the Minister had crisp linen napkins; all the other diners, including the women, had paper ones. Narelle Potter herself brought the fresh linen, flipped it open and spread it on Dircks's broad lap.

“You're still as careless as ever, Gus. I thought Shirley would've smartened you up, down there in the city, now you're a Minister. Look at Inspector Malone. Spotless, and he's just a policeman.”

Malone, just a policeman, said, “Thanks.”

She gave him her hotel-keeper's smile, as dishonest as the collar on a badly-poured beer, and went away. Dircks looked after her admiringly. “Nice woman. One of my best campaign workers when an election's on . . . Malone, I don't think you understand me.”

The remark caught Malone a little off-balance; Dircks had still been looking after Mrs. Potter when he said it. But now he turned to face Malone and there was no mistaking the antagonism in the small blue eyes. He could be authoritative, though in only two months as Minister he had already acquired a reputation for making wrong decisions. But the incompetent don't necessarily give up trying: it is why a few of them occasionally succeed and rise to the top.

Malone took his time, finishing his mouthful of lamb, then cutting some baked pumpkin in half. At last he said, holding his gaze steady against Dircks's, “I understand you perfectly well, Minister.
You
want me to close the case, not make waves, just go back to Sydney and leave everything to the locals. Right?”

“Put as bluntly as that . . . Well, yes, that's the gist of it.”

“I'll have to talk to my superiors in Sydney.” He chanced his arm: “It could go up to the Commissioner. He takes a personal interest in anything I'm working on.”

Dircks looked disbelieving, but also uncertain. In his short time as Minister he had come to know that the Police Department had its own way of working; more so, perhaps, than any other public service department. The men responsible for law and order, it seemed to him, had their own laws. The conservative coalition had not been in government for fifteen years and its ministers were learning that power, no matter what the voters might say about its democratic transfer, was an abstract, not something that could be handed over in a file. In the Police Department there was power at every level, something he had not yet come to terms with.

“The Commissioner and I get on very well together,” he said, though that was not strictly true; he hardly knew John Leeds, a reserved man. “How come he takes a personal interest in what you do?”

“Past association,” said Malone and closed up his face, as if to imply there were police secrets, as indeed there were, that even ministers should not be privy to.

Dircks neatly backed down; weak-willed men are adept at a few things. “Well, I don't want to bring politics into this—there was too much of that from the last government.” He waited for Malone to comment, but got no satisfaction. Then he went on, “You have to realize, out here things are different from what you're used to, I mean in a community like ours. Everybody has to live with everybody else.”

“I understand that was what Mr. Sagawa was trying to do. But somebody didn't want to live with him.” Malone had finished the main course; he picked up the menu. “Do you mind if I have dessert? I've got a sweet tooth.”

“So have I. I can recommend the bread-and-butter pudding, a real old-fashioned one. Yes, I never thought anything like this would ever happen to Sagawa.”

“There's Mr. Koga. He could be next. Bread-and-butter pudding,” he told the stout waitress as
she
loomed up beside their table.

“The same for you, Mr. Dircks?”

“No. No, I think I've had enough.” Dircks waited till the waitress had gone, then he leaned forward, his wide-set eyes seeming to close together on either side of the two deep lines that had suddenly appeared between them. “Christ Almighty, I hadn't thought of that! You'd better stay, catch the murderer before he has the Japs pulling out of the district. They not only grow the cotton, they buy ninety per cent of the crop for their own mills.”

“Then you don't think Billy Koowarra did it?”

“Forget him! Just find out who killed Ken Sagawa.”

“Mr. Dircks, you said you had an interest in South Cloud . . .”

Dircks remained leaning forward on the table for a long moment; then he eased himself back, said quietly, “Yes. The shares are in my wife's name. It's common knowledge, you'll find it in the declaration of MPs' interests down at Parliament House in Sydney. There's nothing to hide.”

“I didn't suggest there was. But I think it might be an idea if you stayed at arm's length from me and the investigating team, don't you? You know what the media are like.”

“I own the local paper, the
Chronicle.
You don't have to worry about it.”

That would explain why no reporter had tried to by-pass Baldock to get to him or Clements. “What about the radio station?”

“Chess Hardstaff owns that.”

I might have guessed it.
“I wasn't thinking so much of the local media as those down in Sydney.” He usually tried to keep the media at his own arm's length; but they were always useful as a weapon, especially with politicians. “How much interest do you have in South Cloud? Or how much is in your wife's name?”

“Twenty per cent.” The answer sounded a reluctant one.

“Any other local shareholders?”

Dircks hesitated, looking at his front to see if he had spotted it with any more gravy. “Well, I
guess
you'll look it up in the company register. Yes, there are two others. Max Nothling, Chess Hardstaff's son-in-law, and one of the town's solicitors, Trevor Waring.”

Malone didn't mention that he had already met Waring; but he wondered why Sean Carmody's son-in-law had said nothing about his interest in the cotton farm. “How much do they hold?”

“Ten per cent each. The Japanese own sixty per cent.”

The waitress brought Malone his bread-and-butter pudding; it looked and tasted as good as Dircks had claimed. Dircks watched him eat, seemed undecided whether to say anything further, then went ahead, “If you have to arrest someone for the murder, ring me first.”

Malone stopped with a mouthful of pudding halfway to his mouth; his mouth was open, as if in surprise, a reaction he never showed. “Why?”

“I just don't want to be here when it happens. If it's someone I know—and chances are it will be—well . . .” He abruptly stood up; that did surprise Malone, though he managed not to show it. “I think it'll be better if you and I don't see each other again, Inspector.”

Malone swallowed the mouthful of pudding. “I couldn't agree more, Minister.”

“The bill's taken care of,” said Dircks and made it sound as if it had come off ministerial expenses and not out of his own pocket. He was not used to paying to be put in his place by one of his own minions.

He left on that, moving swiftly, jerking his head at greetings but not stopping to shake hands with any of those who hailed him, going against the grain of twenty years in politics: any hand ignored could be a hand that might vote against you. Malone was aware of the sudden hush that seemed to have fallen on the big room; the other diners were looking at him, as if to accuse him of upsetting their local member. He went back to finishing his bread-and-butter pudding, glad that something tasted good.

II

“I got in touch with Andy Graham,” said Clements. “He's getting on to Tokyo right away. How did you get on with the Minister for Free Beers?”

When
Dircks had first come to office he had put out three press releases a day, one of which stated that, to polish the New South Wales police's image as squeaky clean, no member of the force was to accept the occasional beer from a hospitable hotel-keeper, not even if dying of thirst. Hence his title, one of several bestowed on him by the squeaky clean.

Malone told him of the luncheon conversation. They were sitting at Baldock's desk in the detectives' room and he laid the conversation out word for word in front of the local man. He was still a little unsure of where Baldock's loyalties lay, but had decided that, if he wanted Baldock to trust him, he had to offer his own trust. He had found, in the past, that often it was the only way to pick the lock in a closed door.

Baldock nodded, not surprised by what Malone had told them. “It figures, with Gus Dircks. I'd bet Chess Hardstaff put him up to it.”

“I didn't like his suggestion that we lay the Sagawa murder on Billy Koowarra.” Malone made the remark casually, but he was watching carefully for any flicker of expression in Baldock's eyes.

There was none, except for a frown of annoyance on the broad forehead. “That would be too bloody easy. And it would raise a riot with the Abos, they'd tear the town apart. Jesus, some politicians are dumb!”

“Speaking of Sagawa,” said Clements, “I went out to the cotton farm again and had a talk with Mr. Koga. He told me that Sagawa had had two threatening phone calls a coupla days before he was murdered.”

“He didn't tell me that!” Baldock was genuinely annoyed.

Clements tried to soothe him. “I don't think there's anything personal in this, Curly, but Koga doesn't trust any of the locals. He's scared out of his pants.”

“He doesn't have any cause to be. Not with me.” Baldock looked hurt, as if he had been a friend of Koga's for life.

“Is Koga still living out at the manager's house?” Malone asked.

Clements nodded. “I gather a local woman comes in to clean for him, but he and Sagawa did
their
own cooking when they wanted Jap food. Otherwise they ate here in town, usually at the Chinese place. I got the idea that neither of them thought much of barbecued steak or sausages or a hamburger. I think Koga's stomach would be even more delicate since the murder.”

Clements's comments were rarely delicate. Malone said, “What do you think about the threats, Curly? Trevor Waring told me last night that Sagawa had been to see him about some threatening letters he'd got.”

“For Chrissake!” Baldock ran his hand over his bald head, clawed at it as if wishing he had hair to tear out. “Why didn't he come to us with those complaints? Why go to Trevor Waring?”