A couple of days later I hear from the fingerprint bureau, but the news is just as frustrating as the rest of the investigation’s been so far. The handle of the knife was wiped clean and there were no prints detected on the weapon, and that’s both bad and good news for Jimmy Crowbar.
It’s bad news, because he can’t be excluded. It’s good news, because I don’t think he’d have gone to the trouble of wiping the handle before making his dash for freedom through a door he’s had to unlock with a key. I have to say I was always a little sceptical, and that simply adds to it.
So, where am I now? Mahoney and Higgins have proved themselves a bona fide liability. I have two lives that ended before they began, and not a clue where to start looking for their mothers. I have a bloke still cooling his heels in the morgue, because his wife can’t afford to bury him. I’ve got a bloke in my lock-up who matched the wife’s description and whom she’s now identified, but who swears his boss can give him an alibi. Which would be fine, except that his boss just happens to be in the middle of nowhere, and we can’t ask him. I’ve got the wife with no obvious reason to kill her husband, who spins me a yarn with holes so big, I could drive a Matilda tank through them.
I ask myself, is there something else behind all of this? I’m thinking that maybe it’s time to take another look. I pencil in another trip to the Pilcher house, and settle down to catch up on my paperwork. As ever, it’s the minute I get stuck in that someone will come through the door and require my attention.
And today is no different.
‘Well, well, Miss Percy,’ I say, ‘you’re back. What is it now?’
Her lips are as tight as a drum. She looks about, as if she’s expecting to be overheard, and then leans in. ‘I believe there may be a bawdy house operating in King Street,’ she begins in a low voice. She looks around again, and stands up straight as an arrow. ‘Now, I’m sure you can’t turn a blind eye to that, Sergeant.’
I desperately want to roll my eyes. ‘What makes you think that there’s a brothel there?’
‘Well, I heard from one of the neighbours that she’s seen comings-and-goings all time of the day and night. Although, mostly the night. And nearly all of them are men.’
‘So why hasn’t she come here to tell me this herself?’
‘She’s frightened of being seen walking into the station. She’s worried about the consequences. I, on the other hand, being a long-time campaigner for morality and fairness, hold no such fear.’
‘No. You’re here every few days.’
Lucky me.
‘So,’ she continues, ‘you will go there and shut it down.’ It’s a statement, not a question.
I reply, ‘I will use my experience and knowledge to do whatever I believe I should do, to make sure the law is upheld.’
She grunts. ‘As uncooperative as ever, I see, Sergeant. You know Father Donnelly had a word about you to Mrs Furey.’
Now, she’s got my goat. ‘What! What about?’
‘We’re all worried about your moral decline. Ever since that woman returned, you’re a changed man.’
‘What are you insinuating?’
‘Nothing, Sergeant. I’m insinuating nothing. But we both know there’s a family history…’
I’m flabbergasted. I’ve never wanted harm to befall a person quite so much since I left the army. ‘You, Miss Percy, are a busybody and a hypocrite. I urge you to take a look at yourself before you look at others. I’m certain you know the gospel: you’re always reading the Bible during Mass. I’m referring to the bit about removing the log out of your own eye first.’
‘Well!’ she replies. ‘Father Donnelly…’
‘What a good idea,’ I continue. ‘Perhaps you should both read Matthew, chapter seven, verse five, before either of you talks to my wife about me and my morals again.’ I turn away. ‘Good day, Miss Percy, I happen to be very busy at the moment, making sure that we’re all safe to walk the streets without anyone bothering us.’
She’s out of the door before I return to my desk, although I fear she’ll be back before too long.
In the early afternoon, the front door flies open and there’s Bill Cunningham. He’s a big bloke, but worse than that, he’s livid. He marches across the room, vaults the counter and shoves Mahoney out of the way.
‘You stupid copper bastards,’ he growls, ‘you better release my boy right this minute, or there’ll be hell to pay.’
Higgins lunges at him. ‘You’ve assaulted a policeman!’
Cunningham shoulders him aside and rattles the cell door. Crowbar looks up. ‘What in God’s name… What have you done to him?’ In the blink of an eye, he’s taken the key off the hook and unlocked the door. He takes hold of Crowbar’s forearm. ‘Come on, Jimmy. You’re going home with me.’
Mahoney’s nipping at his heels. I can see bad descending into worse. I insert myself between Cunningham and the constable. ‘A bit of calm here, a bit of calm,’ I bellow. ‘Now hold on for a moment, Mr Cunningham…’
‘You’ve got the wrong man, Sergeant Furey,’ Cunningham continues. ‘My housekeeper filled me in. She said she told your bloody constables that we were shooting dingoes when this murder happened. That’s the absolute, bloody truth. She reckons she even showed them the three bloody dead dingoes and the rifles still in the ute, just to prove it. I’ve even brought them down with me, to show you. I figure, you might have a few more smarts than your constables.’
I sense Cunningham’s not lying.
Crowbar’s doubled over: the Doc confirmed his ribs are cracked. ‘That’s what I told them,’ he says breathily, ‘but who believes a blackfella? No one.’ He tells me how he shot one of the dingoes, the one with three white socks, clean through the left flank with his .22. ‘Go take a look,’ he says.
I reply, ‘There’s the issue of the identification by the victim’s wife.’
‘Really?’ says Cunningham, ‘Well, she’s lying. I will swear on a stack of bibles that Jimmy and I were together the whole day and night. He hasn’t left the station in weeks. Not once.’
‘Right.’ I frown at Mahoney and Higgins. ‘Let’s see those dingoes.’
They’re pretty putrid by now, but there’s one with three white socks and he’s been shot exactly as Crowbar says. We get back inside and I say, ‘A few more minutes, and then you can both go. I’ll get a quick statement from you, Mr Cunningham, and get it signed off, so that there’s no more trouble, right? I have no reason to keep Jimmy here after that.’
He grudgingly agrees.
Crowbar’s still smarting, and I can’t blame him. He straightens up a little. ‘You lot don’t care who you bring in,’ he says. ‘And as for that missus of his, all of us poor blackfellas look the same, hey?’
Less than an hour later, they’ve made their statements and gone, and I turn my attention to the constables. ‘You didn’t tell me about the dead dingoes or what the housekeeper told you,’ I say. ‘Why didn’t you believe her?’
‘Why should we believe the word of a blackfella over Mrs Pilcher, Sergeant Furey?’ Higgins pipes up.
‘Kate Pilcher gave me a description that might have matched Jimmy Crowbar. Did you ever think that, maybe, there’s more than one bloke running around fitting that description? Or maybe, she has her bloody wires crossed? And it didn’t occur to you that the housekeeper might have no reason to lie to you? I sent you out to enquire about Crowbar’s whereabouts, that’s all.’
‘You told us not to muck around with him, Sergeant Furey, so we didn’t.’
‘Mahoney’s only new, so I don’t expect him to get it right every time, but you’ve been around for a while, so why didn’t you believe the alibi, Higgins?’
‘Because…’ He looks sheepish.
‘Bloody hell, Higgins,’ I bark, ‘why would the Cunninghams lie? Have you got bloody sunstroke or something? They’re one of the most respected families in the district. They are the original settlers.’
‘Darned if I know.’ He shrugs his shoulders.
I hang my head and shake it. I’ve been shaking my head so much lately that I’m worried it’ll wobble permanently. ‘You’ve got to learn how to measure people up. Your job is to investigate crimes, uncover the truth, and not just arrest the first person that walks past you. Not everything is a neat package, just waiting for you to collect. You have to think: sometimes witnesses forget, sometimes they get things wrong, sometimes they lie.’
‘So, how do you tell the difference, Sergeant Furey? I mean, how do you know Mr Cunningham’s not lying to you?’ asks Mahoney.
‘Well, you weigh up motivation and reputation, and then look for corroboration. He had the bloody dingoes there, fellas.’
‘So what do we do now?’
‘We search the Pilcher property again, and then I might get Kate Pilcher in and ask her some more questions.’
‘Is Townsville going to send us a detective to help?’ Mahoney asks.
‘What do you reckon?’ I reply. ‘I’ve not long got off the blower with the inspector, and they’re tied up with stuff there. We’re on our own, I’m afraid, boys.’