Cobram
Robbo was in the pub, worse for wear, likely three sheets to the wind. Fitz headed over, grabbed him when the poor fella looked about to take a dive into a table. ‘Robbo, what the hell are you doing?’
‘I couldn’t take seein’ her there like that, Mr Morgan. All burned up by the sun and chewed over.’ His eyes were bloodshot, bleary as if he had been crying for hours, and he was as drunk as a lord. He flung an arm over Fitz’s shoulder and allowed himself to be shoved into a chair.
Big Tim at the bar shook his head, kept on polishing a glass. ‘Shouldna let him in when we opened, but he was already blubberin’ at the door. Good thing he’s the only one in here so far.’
Fitz laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘Robbo, Mrs Bayley wouldn’t have suffered. She’d have been dead before the animals got her.’ He didn’t know that, but hoped it. ‘Put it out of your mind.’
Robbo crumpled, dribble and snot running. ‘But nobody cared to go check on ’er. I shoulda, I shoulda.’ He held his head in his hands.
Guilt chews away at a man.
Big Tim came over with a towel, and a bowl of water. ‘He can clean himself up a bit if he wants,’ he said gruffly. ‘He ain’t the only one feels bad about Miz Bayley.’ He turned away back to the bar.
‘She had no one else,’ Robbo croaked. ‘My Jenny didn’t like her much, too prickly, she reckoned, but that ain’t no reason to just leave her out there on her own.’
Fitz dunked the towel. ‘Robbo, hey, clean up a bit, mate, you’ll feel better. Let’s get some food into you.’
‘Can’t eat, can’t eat,’ Robbo said, taking the wet towel and rubbing his face hard with it. ‘All them weeks, months out there, on her own.’ He swung an arm around and pointed at the bar. ‘An’ your boss made sure of it,’ he yelled.
Big Tim stopped polishing for a moment. Fitz held up a hand, indicating he’d try to calm Robbo. There was still no one else around.
‘Let’s get away from the pub, let’s walk. C’mon, Robbo,’ Fitz said, hauling the bloke to his feet. ‘Come on.’
Robbo wasn’t finished yelling yet. Fitz made progress, heaving and shoving him towards the door where John met them, still tucking in his shirt. Fitz stumbled out the door with Robbo under his arm.
Behind him he heard Big Tim. ‘Good timin’, O’Shea.’
John gave the bartender a look but addressed Fitz. ‘What the hell are you doin’? I could hear the ruckus from the street. It’s barely nine in the morning.’
‘I’m not drunk. He is,’ Fitz said, lugging a near comatose Robbo into the sunlight.
‘God almighty. All right, bring him to the station, poor bastard,’ John said and turned, walking away. ‘Not the first time I’ve seen him like it.’
‘Well, help me,’ Fitz called out.
John tramped back and held Robbo under the arms. ‘Get yer horse then.’
Fitz untied Patto and between the two men, Robbo was slung over the saddle. He’d gone quiet.
On their way to the station, Fitz spoke to his brother. ‘So’s you know, he’s just accused Haines of deliberately keeping Meryl Bayley isolated while she was alone on the property.’
‘Keep your voice down.’ John marched alongside, his mouth grim, his frown deep. ‘Can’t prove anythin’ of the sort so don’t get in the middle of this, I’m warnin’ you.’
Robbo started crying again, hanging uselessly over Patto’s back. ‘She never hurt no one, her so sick after the bairn died.’ He hawked a great gob and spat. ‘He was tryin’ to drive Roy off, then Roy just flamin’ disappeared.’
‘Shut up, Robinson,’ John said between his teeth.
‘Haines did it,’ Robbo said quietly, repeating it in time with the plodding of the horse. Then he shouted, ‘Haines did it!’
John cuffed Robbo across the head. ‘I said, shut up.’
‘For Chrissakes, John,’ Fitz said.
‘Keep out of this.’ John glared at him over Robbo’s back. ‘Have to shut him up until we get to the station.’
Robbo shouted, sobbed, snivelled. By the time they got to the police station, he’d gone quiet again.
‘I’ll put him in a cell, let him sleep it off,’ John said. ‘Wait here.’ He headed into the station and came back with a set of keys. ‘Bring him around the back. If I get time, I’ll take him out to his wife, though she prob’ly won’t want him like this.’
There were two cells, each a small room with a cot fixed to the wall and a bucket. Fitz and John manhandled Robbo inside, then John slammed the door and locked it.
‘Not lookin’ forward to cleanin’ that up in the next few hours.’ He gave a sharp nod of his head and Fitz followed him into the station. ‘Haines will know about this in thirty minutes flat.’
Fitz slumped in the chair at his brother’s desk. ‘So don’t tell me there’s nothing going on.’
John took off his cap and threw it on the desk, rubbed his hands through his hair. ‘Bayley didn’t want to hand the place over to Haines. Haines didn’t like that. Something happened, and I don’t know what.’
Fitz stared at him. ‘This can’t be new. Haines must have been standing over people around here for a while.’
John banged his fists on his desk, his voice low. ‘You don’t know anything. Don’t stick your bib in, this isn’t one of your playtime stories.’
Fitz ignored the jibe. ‘Haines is a criminal, John,’ he said. ‘Tantamount to a murderer if what Robbo says is true.’
‘Robbo, poor bastard.’ John wiped his hand over his mouth and nose. ‘He’ll be next if he don’t watch it.’
Fitz sat there, stumped. His brother knew about this—whatever it was. Extortion at least. ‘And Bayley and his wife?’
John shrugged, seemed to have lost his fire. ‘No way of knowing what happened, is there?’
Fitz shoved his hands in his pockets. ‘I was camped at the river last night and someone chucked a firecracker at me.’
John gave him a bleary-eyed glare. ‘I should give a tuppeny toss.’
Battening down his temper, ignoring the vulgarity—his brother’s tried and tested way of belittling him—Fitz continued. ‘Tied to a rock following it was a message telling me to get on my way.’
‘Good advice.’ John dragged his chair out from the desk and sat down heavily.
‘I can’t leave yet, John. I know Meryl Bayley’s sister. I need answers for her, at least.’
The bleary eyes squinted. ‘That’s not the reason you’re here.’
Fitz tapped the desk with both hands. ‘Now it’s part of it. I came here after hearing about water rights, corruption and such, and walk into murder.’
‘Dramatic.’ John scoffed. ‘It’s not bad trouble over water. Just rumours, rumblings. No one trusts what’s happening.’
Fitz leaned forward. ‘And what is happening?’
John chewed his lip. ‘What were you doing at the newspaper office?’
So he had seen Fitz there. ‘Hoping for an interview with whoever runs the show.’
‘Forget it. They report what they’re told to report.’
‘Don’t know too many newspaper men who do that, John, but I know a few policemen who do what they’re told.’
‘Brother or not, watch your mouth,’ John growled.
‘Why aren’t you looking into what Haines is doing?’
‘Because as far as I can see,’ John said as if talking to a child, ‘he’s not doing anythin’ against the law.’
‘He ran Bayley off his property and sicced his mongrel men onto that poor woman. Did God-only-knows-what to her.’
‘Did he? Did they?’ John stabbed a finger the air towards Fitz. ‘Keep yer bloody voice down. Don’t bust yer balls over it, mate. You of all people know we need proof, and without Bayley, or his missus, we’ve got nothin’. Not a thing.’
‘I ask a few questions, go out to that property and a firecracker’s hurled at me with a message. That’s not nothing.’ Fitz cocked an eyebrow. ‘Or was it you threw the cracker?’
John gave him a look. ‘Don’t be a daft bugger.’ He sat back in his chair. ‘What are you gonna do?’ When Fitz met him with a quizzical look, he added, ‘Stay or leave?’
‘Stay.’
‘Then I want you where I can see you. Where I’m staying. Bunk in my room.’ John’s voice was tired. He was worried.
It suited Fitz. ‘I’ll take you up on that.’
‘Good. Now for Chrissakes, let me get on with the day.’
Fitz pushed out of the chair.
‘One more thing, little brother,’ John said, pulling open a drawer and flipping Fitz a key. ‘Lock the house whenever you leave it or if you’re ever there on your own at night.’
‘Lock it? You’re joking.’ At the mean look on John’s face, Fitz said, ‘All right, will do.’
‘If Haines smells somethin’ off, he’ll be onto yer quick as look at yer.’ The glare was loaded. ‘He doesn’t need any excuse, either. You hear me?’
It was a clear enough warning.
Outside, Fitz pocketed the key, thought about the next article for the newspaper he was carrying around in his saddlebags. Wasn’t the best place to stash it, nor was the house. Maybe at the police station itself.
Maybe not. For more than one reason, John and his association with Haines had him jittery.
A firecracker message chucked at you in the dead of night will do that.