17

I settled into a seat on the train, gazing through the glass at the endless bushland, the small weatherboard cottages with smoke rising from their chimneys, horse and carts plodding on dirt roads and more bushland, endlessly replaying those minutes with Flora on the balcony, tormenting myself, a pastime I was very good at.

Finally the train pulled into Central and the memories rushed at me. Train trips between my home in Queanbeyan and Sydney had filled my teenage years as a boarder at King’s, journeys filled with homesickness and worry of returning home, oppressed by nameless longing, boredom and the generalised anger of a young man at odds with the world he finds himself in.

Thirty-one and I hadn’t changed, although now I recognised the nameless longing as lust. Easily slaked, but not so the anger. My war experiences appeared to have exacerbated that unappealing characteristic.

From Central I walked down Castlereagh Street, past the pubs and cheap shops, the streets busy with Clydesdales pulling drays laden with bales or barrels of beer, horse-drawn trams, people bustling here and there, more people than I’d seen in three years, all in one street. The noise, a tumultuous roar, caused a sudden tension in my shoulders, a gritting of teeth I had not felt since last in a city.

On the corner of Hunter and Phillip I found the Sydney Criminal Investigation Branch. I walked in and asked the duty officer if I could see Arthur Baines, then waited, watching men come and go in their cheap suits, laughing or grim, arrogant or shifty, the ubiquitous fag in their lips.

A door behind the counter opened and Baines appeared.

‘Blimey, Trooper Hawkins – what brings you here?’

‘Your sunny smile, Detective,’ I said as we shook hands. He invited me into the detective offices. The large room was full of desks with men slouching, reading form guides, half-eaten sandwiches in front of them, or labouring over some bit of paperwork. Nobody looked up.

‘The pit, where the juniors hack at the coalface,’ he said, waving his hand dismissively.

He took me into a large room with a window onto the street, a blackboard and a large table and chairs.

‘Have a seat. What can I do you for, eh?’ he said, lighting up a fag.

‘I wanted to talk about the Kirkbride case.’

He hesitated and looked out the window, then back at me. ‘It’s pretty clear what happened, since their empty bag was found up near the border,’ he said, ashing his fag. ‘We’ll be putting out descriptions of the jewellery and gowns, see if they turn up in pawn shops. It was a robbery gone wrong. Murder and rape by persons unknown. We won’t be going back, unless there’s a full confession, and even then …’ He looked over at the door and said softly, ‘I don’t think we’d be undermining our own findings, now, would we?’

‘What if you were wrong?’

‘We aren’t wrong.’

‘But you suspect Tom Fletcher.’

‘I never said that.’

‘Have you told the Kirkbrides this?’

‘Yep, the new inspector general himself wrote to them. They accept that it was robbery gone wrong.’

‘I don’t understand how the Kirkbrides can just give up.’

He gave me a look I couldn’t decipher, something akin to a brick wall.

‘I’ve seen the jewellery Kirkbride reported as stolen,’ I said. ‘It wasn’t stolen at all.’

Baines didn’t miss a beat. ‘He’s mistaken, that’s all. Easy mistake to make when you’re in shock.’

‘Then he’s an unreliable witness. He could have made a mistake about the leather bag too.’

He leant back in his chair and considered me. ‘Just, ah, hold on for a minute. Back in a sec.’

I went to the window, looked out at the street, the busy pub across the road. I knew word of my visit would get back to Bourke, but I’d deal with that later. I was still a member of the Mounted Troopers, with a warrant card. One day, and it was getting closer by the minute, I’d have no access to anything, not even the police station outhouse.

Baines swept back into the room, all bluster. ‘Come and have lunch over at the pub. The boss wants to meet you – Detective Superintendent Jack Tuttle.’

‘Thank you, but I better get on.’

‘Jack Tuttle,’ he repeated. ‘Wants to have lunch with you.’

~

The pub dining room was full of men in suits drinking, smoking, shouting, feeding and swearing. Once my eyes had accustomed to the dim light, I knew I was going to have difficulty with the crowd and the noise, and I set myself the grim task of tamping down my reactions.

Jack Tuttle was a man of appetites, pouring pints of beer down his throat and tackling a massive serve of roast pork with gusto. I had a beer and a mutton chop just to be sociable.

‘Your boss speaks well of you,’ Tuttle said, a sheen of perspiration on his red-veined face. ‘Ted Buchanan, that is.’

‘The Mounted Police super?’

‘Yeah – says you were in the army, the New South Wales Mounted Rifles, in the Boer War.’

‘I was, yes.’

Tuttle nodded as he chewed, sweaty jowls wobbling, his hooded eyes sharp as tacks. ‘The new inspector general was a mounted trooper – solved the Tommy Moore case in Bourke. Heard about that?’

‘No.’

‘Ask Jim Corcoran, he served with him.’ Tuttle paused as he sawed away at a chunk of glistening pork fat. ‘Mounted troopers produce good officers – they can go a long way.’

I thought of Lonergan dithering about with his maps upside down, the six troopers breaking formation at the first sound of gunfire, me lying dead drunk on my bed while Calpa ticked over like a cheap watch.

He put down his knife and fork, drank some beer and dabbed at his mouth. ‘As an army officer, you’d know that loyalty to your brother officers is the golden rule. It’s the same in the police. Loyalty to your fellow officers and to the department is a rule us coppers live by.’

‘Inspector Denning didn’t show me any loyalty.’

Tuttle waved his hand as if Denning were merely an irritating fly. ‘It’s obvious to me that Miss Ryan was lying to save her reputation. A man of your background wouldn’t lie. Your record will be amended so there’s no trace of this misunderstanding.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘But you understand the Kirkbride case is closed?’

‘I do, sir.’

He nodded with satisfaction. ‘I’ll have a quiet word to the Department of Education about Miss Ryan. We look after our own.’

He heaved himself up out of his chair, slapped me on the shoulder, said he’d see us later and left the pub, waving to the barman as he went.

Baines drained the remains of his beer, smacked his lips. ‘Denning copped a serve over his treatment of you.’

‘Good, glad to hear it.’

In South Africa, if another officer was discovered buggering a coolie or beating a whore, we never said anything. It was his business, unsavoury and you’d steer clear of him in the mess, but the rule was never cast a stone at a brother officer lest the stones come back at you one day, hard and vicious. It was the way the game was played: never mind that the Gatling’s jammed and the colonel’s dead, you step up and play the game as the rules are set.

Baines and I walked out into the street and shook hands.

‘Listen,’ I said, ‘I don’t want Miss Ryan to lose her job. Can you do something?’

Baines shook his head. ‘You need a weapon with a bit of stopping power to bring Jack Tuttle down, mate.’

~

I returned to Katoomba to see Flora, taking my old room in the nearby guesthouse and breathing in the balmy air of the mountains redolent with spring flowers. I purchased a large bunch of daffodils, white jonquils and maidenhair fern for her.

I was told I couldn’t see her.

‘Who says so?’

‘The doctor.’

‘Ask her if she’d like to see me.’

They refused and I was shown the door.

I went back to my room and brooded. I could have chopped an entire redgum to kindling I was so angry, and I walked down to the Three Sisters, a bitter wind blowing. I read that legend had it the three rock formations were once three beautiful sisters who were coveted by men from a different tribe. In order to prevent the men from carrying the sisters away, the girls’ tribal necromancer turned them into stone. Seemed a bit unfair to me. Had it not occurred to him to turn the men into stone instead?

~

The familiar dust clouds of Bourke greeted me as I stepped from the train. Topsoil from far away settled on my clothes, irritated my eyes, lodged in my beard. My brief absence in the east, with respite from the dust, made the assault even more uncomfortable. I went to fetch Felix, and as I paid the ostler he gave me an envelope. Inside was a note instructing me to report to Superintendent Corcoran upon my return.

I found my way to the police station. They were expecting me. I was made to wait. Like a boy outside the headmaster’s office, I knew I was in for a bollocking and was impatient to get it over with.

~

Corcoran sat behind his desk, absorbed in writing something, as if I were not in the room standing to attention. The pictures of past superintendents, hanging along the wall, glared at all the miscreants who’d escaped their clutches. Corcoran’s goldfish swam in circles.

‘You’ve been visiting Flora Kirkbride and poking your nose into the Kirkbride case,’ Corcoran snapped, replacing his pen in the stand. ‘I never picked you for a fool, Hawkins. Many other things, but not that. Denning warned me – he told me.’

‘Sir. Told you what?’

‘That you are trouble on two legs.’

‘I have never given the Mounted Troopers any trouble, sir. On the contrary—’

‘No, you haven’t. But you’ve been making up for it since the Kirkbrides were killed, starting that night and gathering apace. The case is closed until the Queensland police apprehend the offenders. That’s it, done. Nobody from the Kirkbrides to the minister wants to hear about it again.’

‘I saw Baines in Sydney, briefly, sir. Had lunch with DS Jack Tuttle.’

His eyebrows hit the roof. ‘You had lunch with Jack Tuttle?’

‘Roast pork, I think it was, sir. Denning’s been put back on his chain and my record is to be amended.’

Corcoran blinked a few times. ‘I expect Tuttle told you that the Kirkbride case is closed.’

‘He did. But—’

‘There is no but. Kirkbride is outraged that you visited his daughter without permission. He assumed Dr Pryor told you where Miss Flora was but Pryor denies it. He says the only way you could have known is if you’d looked in his confidential files, and to do that you would have to have broken into his home.’

I felt a bit queasy at that moment.

‘What do you say to that?’

‘Miss Kirkbride is a dear friend.’

‘You are lucky your dear friend Dr Pryor does not want to press charges,’ he said, and swung his chair around to look out the window for a moment, giving me time to reflect on either my own stupidity or Joe’s lack of loyalty.

‘When you first came out here, I knew immediately why you’d accepted a remote posting,’ Corcoran said, swinging his chair back to face me. ‘To drink yourself to death. And if you didn’t, you’d be out of here after a few years, once you felt a bit better, and would go back to some privileged life in the east. But all of us in the Mounted Troopers have no other career than this, and no hope of one. Men like you, silvertails, come in and smash things and then leave the mess to us. You don’t belong in the force, Hawkins.’

‘I’m not resigning, sir, if that’s what you want.’

‘You are suspended without pay. You must leave the police station for Lonergan to man, return your horse, uniform and warrant card. You are to stay in the district until I say you can leave. Robert Kirkbride is a lot closer than Jack Tuttle. Now, fuck off and don’t let me hear or see you again. For some time.’

I expect Corcoran would have sacked me if he could, but a plate of roast pork stood in his way.

I collected Felix and we headed south. Furious with myself and with Joe, I set Felix at a gallop, needing the exhilaration of speed and the power of the horse beneath me to excise the anger. It worked like a drug, one I knew I’d never tire of. But we had a long ride ahead and soon had to settle into a steady plod. I’d made this journey so many times before. But never with the sobering knowledge that I’d managed to get myself expelled from exile.

~

Lonergan was out the back in the stable brushing his horse and looked out at us as we arrived. I led Felix into the neighbouring stall, took all his kit off and watched him and Dancer have a smooch.

‘I hope you weren’t expecting the same from me,’ Lonergan said.

I smiled, watching the stable cat join Felix and Dancer. It’d be nice to be missed by someone, greeted with pleasure when I returned, kissed and petted.

‘So yeah, nothing happened and then … nothing happened. Did patrols, cleaned out the stable, that’s about it. A fella called Beavins from Gowrie wanted to speak to you, but he never came back.’

‘Log it?’

He nodded. Back inside the station, I checked the filing trays, ran my eye down the incident book. Several spelling mistakes and an inkblot, but Lonergan was right, nothing had happened. Just the local business of producing wool, getting drunk, waking up the next day and doing it all again. I checked the mail. The personal letters from my father met their end in the stove fire, as usual.

‘I got the order to man the station. They say you’re suspended and to clear out,’ Lonergan said, joining me.

‘Yep.’

‘You didn’t kill them, for Christ’s sake.’

‘I did something else, so out I go.’

‘Tell you what, I’m going to miss Mrs Schreiber. Lived like a king out here.’

‘She stays. I’ll keep eating here – I’ll die if I have to eat at the Royal.’

I took Dancer and Felix on a ride south downriver, coolabahs and redgums lining the riverbanks and shading the road. The dappled sunlight hit the pitted dirt road. The water in the river was up. Grey herons waded along the shallows. Crested pigeons flew off in flurry of alarm as we approached. There’d be good fishing along here soon, for a brief moment, before the water dwindled and the mud hardened in the summer. Some days, after good rain, pelicans appeared, usually in threes, riding the updrafts above the river, scouting for fish, a long way from their coastal home and its certainties.

I found a low bank and let the horses have a splash in the water while I lit a fag and had a think about what to do next.

~

Back at the police station I threw some clothes into a bag, picked out a few books, looked around and left. Staying at the Royal was the only alternative. As I walked past Joe’s house, he came out and invited me in for a drink. But once the door closed behind me, his expression changed to anger.

We stood in the dim hallway, barely able to see each other. Mrs Schreiber was working in the kitchen, frying liver, by the smell of it. She quietly closed the door and we were practically in the dark, just bright slits of light beneath both doors.

‘You went to see Flora,’ Joe said. ‘You broke into my office and read her confidential notes.’

‘I didn’t break in – the place was unlocked, as were your files.’

‘Kirkbride gave me a dressing-down when he should have saved it for you. You broke the law, several times.’

‘I’m suspended without pay. Happy?’

‘You’re not sorry, are you?’ he said.

‘No, I’m not. She’s had no visitors since she’s been there. She’s all alone and suffering.’

‘And you think you can relieve that suffering?’

‘You could have, and should have, told Kirkbride you didn’t know how I found out,’ I snapped. ‘Shown a bit of loyalty.’

‘I’m not going to be yelled at just to save your skin.’

‘He yelled at you – so what? Are you so piss-weak that you caved in just because he raised his voice? Did he hit you, fire a gun at you, torture you? No, he told you off. And in the face of such overwhelming force, you threw me under the wheels.’

‘You can’t help but fuck things up, can you?’

‘Spoken like a true friend.’ I pulled the front door open, bright light blaring in, then let it slam behind me.