15

Lonergan cleared the tea things in the station. I stood out the front to get some air. Corcoran and Martin conferred. Baines strolled over, lit a fag. ‘Saw your lip curl when Denning mentioned his gut.’

‘Just a touch of indigestion.’

‘Haven’t you heard of the golden gut?’ Baines said.

‘Sounds like a sheep disease, black leg, pink eye, golden gut.’

‘Nah, it’s instinct, mate, a gut that’s never wrong. Don’t you soldiers follow your instincts?’

‘If a soldier followed his instincts, the battlefield would be empty and the brothels full to capacity.’

He laughed but patted his stomach. ‘Comes from further north.’

‘Is that what Denning says to the magistrate? “I know they’re guilty because me guts is gurgling?”’

‘And then I take the stand and say, “More evidence is available if you’d care to sniff my fart, m’lud.”’

We batted this around, laughing like schoolboys, until I realised the six junior troopers were still in dress uniform and waiting to be told what to do. They hadn’t even returned their weapons to the armoury, and God knew what state those were in.

Mounted troopers were issued with Martini–Henry Mk II carbines and Webley service revolvers. Failure to maintain your weapon was a serious offence in the army. Cleaning your rifle came after seeing to your horse and before seeing to yourself. Mounted troopers were taught this, but the discipline lapsed as the high stakes flattened out and fell asleep in the afternoon sun of endless paperwork.

‘Set up the bench on trestles in the yard,’ I ordered Lonergan to order them. ‘Weapons are to be stripped and cleaned. They can do it there in twos – those not working on their weapons can prepare fodder bags, enough for each horse for at least two weeks. If they don’t know how much that is, refer to the handbook. I want first-aid kits checked over, tent pegs counted and recounted, I want all tack checked and rechecked. Flour, tea, bully beef, all rations measured and checked. If we are going to hit disaster out there, it won’t be because we didn’t pack our toothbrushes.’

Lonergan snapped to it, shoulders a bit squarer with his newfound mapping skills. He was a quick learner and now guided the detectives without complaint. Came home a bit shaky from the effort of command in front of Denning and Baines, but he was on his way.

I hauled out what maps we had of the north and plotted, measured and noted. If we found a trace of these men – extremely unlikely – but if we did and fell into the chase, we had to know where the water was at all times.

~

Next morning, waking to an even greater sense of foreboding than was normal for me, I went through the usual morning routine while running through my plans for the manhunt. Miles to be covered, discipline, morale. The falling sensation, the unpleasant feeling that haunted me, passed through me again, accompanied by a strong sense of impending doom. Only this time it was a reasonable thing to feel. I put a hand on the wall and breathed, waiting for it to pass. Hadn’t had these for a while, but now I’d had two in twenty-four hours.

Lonergan appeared and put the kettle on, and I quickly dropped my hand, straightened up. Then Mrs Schreiber came and did breakfast. I ate, gnashing my teeth on the toast, cutting my eggs savagely. This was my final meal before two weeks of tins, damper, listening to troopers’ fart jokes and sleeping on stones, and I’d be fretting the entire time about my job, about Flora, about Denning and Kirkbride fitting me up.

Superintendent Corcoran appeared at the back door, scowling like a dyspeptic Titan. The scowl was, no doubt, for me. ‘Leave us, Trooper Lonergan.’

Lonergan picked up his plate and cup of tea and, after glancing at me, went out the back.

‘Martin will lead the manhunt,’ Corcoran announced when we were alone. ‘He told me you were found on Kirkbride’s property in the middle of the night. Says you threatened Kirkbride, who claims you were after his daughter. You’re not fit to lead a manhunt and I doubt you’re even fit to wear the uniform.’

‘Sir, if I may, this manhunt—’

‘Sydney expects a manhunt, the Kirkbrides expect it, the detectives and the entire district expect a manhunt, and therefore there will be a manhunt.’

‘Sir.’

‘You have served your country, Hawkins, and I have taken note of it, giving you a long rope. But enough is enough. You and I will be having a discussion about your future as soon as this investigation is over. You are to stay sober until then and confine yourself to the station and other routine duties.’

‘Sir.’

‘I am returning to Bourke early tomorrow. Denning will go with me and return to Calpa the day after.’

‘Sir.’

I watched him stride off to organise his horse. Ernest Martin couldn’t lead an Easter egg hunt, and the whole thing was a waste of time anyway. There had been no reports of murders up and down the river, no reports of stolen horses, not even the Ellerslie horses had been stolen, it turned out. No boundary riders attacked, no reports of three men cycling frantically towards the Queensland border.

But an hour later Martin and the six troopers rode down to the punt, leading an extra two horses carrying supplies. They had enough combined weaponry and men to organise into volley fire, should it be necessary. The men who killed the Kirkbrides would no doubt attack them head-on in formation, using a similar countermarch tactic, which they would then return, and may the better men win.

The locals cheered like the troopers were going off to war. But anyone who knew anything expected nothing to come of it. It was a deflating moment. I’d been keyed up, making notes and lists of the thousand and one things needed to do a long manhunt successfully and bring your men home alive, whether or not you caught the culprit. Now I was confined to the station, left to count the flies on the wall.

~

That night I woke to the sound of a timid tapping on my window. I sat up, pushed the curtain aside and there was old Kev, holding up a lantern in one hand and a telegram in the other, his crinkled old face still full of sleep. I staggered out and found him in his nightshirt with a pair of wellingtons on his feet.

‘Thanks, Kev,’ I said, and signed his little book. ‘You better get out of the cold, mate.’

He shuffled off across the street and I ripped open the telegram. It was from the Bourke station. A trooper was on his way with an urgent message for Corcoran and the detectives. They were to stay in Calpa until they received it.

I woke Lonergan and sent him to wake Corcoran, but he came back and said they’d already gone. I sent him riding as fast as he could up the western river road to recall them.

~

A couple of hours after sending Lonergan upriver, Denning and Corcoran were in my kitchen, sitting in uncomfortable silence. Then the trooper from Bourke galloped into town in a swirl of dust. He dismounted, sweaty and breathless, as if he’d seen the enemy massing over the next hill. Corcoran and Denning came outside.

‘Trooper Copeland, Bourke, sir. I have a bag, from Enngonia on the stock route, an empty leather holdall handed in by some drover and sent down to Bourke on the mail coach, sir. They reckoned it could be Kirkbride’s. It could have had the stolen gowns and jewellery in it.’

‘And you have it with you?’

‘I do, sir. Senior Constable Hurley reckoned the detectives needed to see it, sir.’

Denning and Corcoran looked at each other. The bag was in a hessian sack tied to the horse. The trooper untied it and handed the bag to Corcoran and they went inside.

‘When did you leave Bourke?’ I asked the trooper.

‘Around four am.’

‘Take your horse round the back, there’s feed and water. Pub might do you a late breakfast.’

Lonergan was sent to get Baines, and then the four of them went up to Inveraray to see Kirkbride. Before he left, Lonergan took me aside and told me that when he went up the western road to fetch Denning and Corcoran, he rode past the Kirkbride buggy heading north, with two women in it and a man riding escort. As soon as he was gone with the others, I raced over to Joe’s.

He was at his desk beneath the window that looked out onto the street, the inevitable skeleton hanging in the corner, the metal cabinets full of small jars and bottles. He grabbed the brandy, poured a couple of measures into two tumblers and handed me one, regardless of the early hour.

‘Have you seen Flora? Is she all right?’ I said, ignoring the brandy.

He drank his brandy quickly, then sighed and looked out the window at the street. ‘No, she’s not all right, so I advised Kirkbride to send her to a special sanatorium back east. She left this morning.’

‘You sent Flora to a bloody madhouse? Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Did I have to ask your permission?’ Joe said, filling his glass again. ‘She’s a danger to herself, she needs care around the clock.’

‘You sent her away?’

‘Yes. Her father and her doctor are the best judges of what is best for her.’

‘She can think for herself.’

‘And has just suffered a terrible loss that drove her to want to take her life. And you turn up at her home in the middle of the night, stirring up trouble. You are part of the reason Flora is sick, according to Mr Kirkbride.’

‘The hell I am.’

‘Her family want her away from here so she can recover in peace and quiet, and the last thing she needs is you, sick yourself and in no fit state to do anything, trying to get at her.’

‘I am not sick. Don’t you take that fucking “doctor knows best” line with me. Bunch of charlatans, the lot of you, fakirs and conmen drumming your fucking opium like bloody roaming peddlers. Sedate the population so they won’t make a fuss, that’s what you do, because you don’t know what the fuck is wrong with them.’

‘Finished?’

‘Give me the address so I can write to her at least.’

‘No.’

I threw the glass of brandy at the wall, where it shattered, splattering glass and brandy around, stomped out and went down to the river, wanting to hit someone.

Joe might say Kirkbride sent Flora away to get better, but for men like Kirkbride, there were always two reasons – one good, and then the real one.

~

That night I found Baines down at the hotel having a drink by himself, the usual drinkers giving him a wide berth, as though he were a leper on the run from a lazaret. I ordered a beer and took a seat next to him.

‘Has it been confirmed that the men dismissed for disruption on Inveraray didn’t return home?’ I asked.

‘They did go home,’ Baines said, looking into his beer. ‘Local cops confirmed it. One of them even had his train ticket stub from Bourke to Bathurst.’

‘And the alleged stolen horses?’

He turned to me, bloodshot eyes, a sour look on his mug.

‘But the empty bag is Kirkbride’s?’

‘He swears by it,’ he said, flicking fag ash at the ashtray. ‘So yeah, killers have gone to Queensland, taken the jewels and gowns with them. But they just aren’t the blokes we thought they were.’

Martin and the troopers would wander about, use up the allocated resources, get hot and filthy, wear out the horses and the budget would balance. I doubted Corcoran would send out more troopers to bring them back, because everyone expected a manhunt and by God they were going to get one.

The Queensland police would be notified but there was nothing the detectives could give them, no descriptions of the suspects, only a list of stolen property and the dates, times and nature of the crimes. Baines thought Bob Kirkbride had accepted that his three children had gone to the dance in Larne after all.

‘Reckons young Grace was so excited about the ball, but by the time she felt better it was too late to get to Cobar, so they went to Larne instead for the dance as it was closer.’

‘But they told the servants they were going to Cobar,’ I said.

‘Changed their mind once they was on the road,’ he shrugged. ‘Can’t be proved but it sounds like a reasonable explanation.’

Not to me. If only James had been seen at the dance, then where were the two girls? Sitting in the cart all night?

‘I know what you’re thinking, mate, but investigations can’t go hammer and tongs indefinitely. We’ll put out a reward for any information. Get a load of shit back usually, but sometimes you get lucky.’

‘And the inquest?’

‘Yeah, well, they’ll probably find that it was unlawful killing by person or persons unknown, restrict the evidence and put it in the pending tray. That’s what usually happens, unless there’s a fuss made, and there don’t seem to be an appetite for fuss from Kirkbride. Leaves a nasty taste in your mouth but it’s the way it goes sometimes.’

‘Just between you and me, who do you think—’

Baines drained his beer and mashed his cigarette out. ‘Somebody who knew them, that’s what I reckon. And yeah, between you, me and the fencepost, I’d be looking a lot closer at Tom Fletcher.’

‘No,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘No, Tom adored Nessie.’

‘Exactly. A man who carries that around everyday can switch from hearts and flowers to knives and fists in an instant. It’s the bread and butter of policing, the crime that puts money in our pay packet each week. Women and girls killed by husbands or sweethearts.’

I must have looked sceptical, because he nodded and went on.

‘We done some digging on Tom Fletcher. His school reckons he had a hot temper, every bloke on Gowrie says the same.’

‘But he was in Cobar at the ball – there are witnesses.’

‘He left the ball early to go looking for them, took the Gully Tank stockroute. Reckons he never thought of looking on the western river road because that’s not how you get to Cobar from Inveraray. But he could have.’

‘He can’t have killed them, the timing makes it impossible. I know that route, it’s quicker, but—’

‘He’s on a fast horse and flogs it ’cause he’s so stirred up because she didn’t turn up as she’d promised.’

‘Maybe, but why kill the other two?’

‘Because they were there. You reckon Nessie wasn’t a flirt, but that means she didn’t flirt with you. But you don’t know, she could have been giving the come-on to all and sundry and Tom can’t take it anymore. He’s furious she’s not at the ball, he finds them on the road, argues with Jimmy – and they didn’t like each other – and smashes Jimmy’s head in. Grace screams so he shoots her, Nessie’s screaming, and she won’t shut up so he hits her, and when she’s down he takes her, takes what she’s been holding out on but promising to other blokes.’

I stared at him, his baby face and hard eyes, the black bags under them, the sunburnt forehead. The things he’d seen etched in every line around his eyes.

Baines shrugged. ‘She don’t have to be a flirt for him to think she’s a flirt. Just the idea of it can set some men off.’

‘So why are you pulling out? If you think he did it, why not try to prove it?’

He got to his feet, picked his fags and matches up from the table and said, ‘Sydney CIB runs on three things, mate: getting to the top, knifing the bloke who’s already there, and then fending off challengers. We also run investigations.’

And with that enigmatic answer, he said goodnight and left. They packed up and left for Bourke the next day.

~

Lonergan had gone back to Bourke with Corcoran. Martin and the troopers were flogging a dead horse somewhere west of the black stump, and I had the place to myself again. Rather than hang around an empty station, I often found myself at the pub. One day, a bit too early, I found Wally was polishing his glasses in the endless battle against dust. He measured out a double whisky and a beer and slid them over to me.

‘How you going, Gus?’

‘Good, yeah. Any better and I’d be dangerous.’

‘Circus’s left town, eh?’ Wally said, fixing me with his kindly, bloodshot eyes. ‘Listen, mate, you look after yourself.’

‘Always do.’

‘Nope, you were in a bad way when you first arrived, maybe you just didn’t notice.’

‘What do you mean, “a bad way”?’

‘Queer in the head, you know. Kev and I laid bets on how long you’d last before someone found you hanging from a stable rafter. But you come good.’

‘Did I?’

He laughed, slapped me on the shoulder and kept polishing his glasses with a damp rag.

The thing about coming good was you couldn’t lie around drunk waiting for time to pass and goodness to return. You had to get up, go forward to meet it, then work your arse off to make it stay. Sliding into bitterness and cynicism felt like a relief at the time, but it was downward movement.

I busied myself around the station, dusting off the files, checking they were in order, sharpening pencils, auditing the tack room, writing it all up, putting in the effort to stay on the horizontal.

~

After days of this misery, Joe came hurrying into the station. We had avoided each other since Flora had been sent away, so I assumed this was not a social call.

‘Bad accident at the mines in Cobar,’ he said. ‘I’ve been called in to help. Even Reg Tierney is going, that’s how bad it is.’

‘Any dead?’

‘Three dead, seven badly injured.’

‘What on earth do they want with Tierney?’ I said. ‘He’ll kill ’em as soon as look at them.’

‘Shunt the less urgent cases to us and get on with fixing the miners. Anyway, I’ll be away for several days and so will Reg. Anybody hurt and you’ll have to get them to Bourke or Cobar.’

‘Yeah, all right. You’re riding into Cobar?’

‘How else do you expect me to get there?’

‘Don’t forget your waterbag, map and compass. And some oats for the horse.’

‘You think I don’t know how to do this?’ he said, frowning.

‘I know you don’t. You should go with Reg, in his buggy. Safer with two of you. Tie your horse to the back of the buggy and swap them around halfway.’

‘I’m perfectly able to get to Cobar.’

‘Take a gun. You don’t know who’s out there now.’

He made an impatient noise and left. I returned to my book.

~

That night, Mrs Schreiber brought my dinner over and left it on the stove, picked up my washing and left. I waited until it was late and then went to Joe’s and let myself in the back door. I quietly made my way up the hall to the surgery, picked the key to the filing cabinet from Joe’s hiding spot, which I’d seen him use many times, and opened his files. I found his file on Flora, laid it on the desk and located a copy of a letter to a doctor at a sanatorium in Katoomba. I scribbled down the address, returned the file and let myself out into the dark night.

I put in for a week’s leave, which was granted as soon as Lonergan returned to man the station.