27

I got off the bed, ran down the hotel stairs and hurtled after Corcoran, past the carts making their deliveries, the steaming piles of dung in the street, the harsh hot air. He knew I was behind him but marched into the police station. By the time I got there, the duty officer had put a wall up.

‘You can wait on the bench and I’ll let ’im know you’re here but I don’t fancy yer chances.’

I went back to the hotel, ate a mound of sausage and eggs, went upstairs and went back to sleep. Must have been time for lunch when I was woken again by thumps on the door – this time it was a junior trooper come to fetch me to the station. Again I found myself on the carpet in Corcoran’s office, the goldfish shaking his head at my sorry appearance.

‘What makes you think they killed the Kirkbrides?’ Corcoran said.

I explained the chain of events and deductions I’d gone through, the inconsistencies in the statements, the words of Maroney and Kelly, of Mrs Fletcher, Sheila Stewart, the jewellery in Flora’s possession, the knowledge of Nessie’s injuries given to Mrs Fletcher by Miss Gilmour, who could only have heard it from Beavins.

‘Why would a man like Kirkbride want this investigation into the deaths of his children to fail?’

I could not reveal Grace’s pregnancy, so I said, ‘Maybe he and Mrs Kirkbride want to be left alone to grieve, not endure the newspaper stories, the notoriety, the constant dread of a trial with all the horrific details of their children’s deaths laid out for people to gasp at. Not to mention the shareholders getting nervous about the future of Inveraray and pulling out.’

‘You’re saying he’s content to manipulate the investigation and then accept the findings of robbery gone wrong by persons unknown?’

‘Yes, and now you’ll ask why I didn’t go along with that.’

‘I can see why you wouldn’t go along with it. You have a bloody great stain on your record you want to clean up,’ he said.

‘I believe the men in the cells killed the Kirkbrides, Albert Jong and Archibald Beavins and were out to kill me. And they’ll keep killing, and my job is – was – to prevent that. Sir.’

He considered me, then shook his head. ‘Given my life to the Mounted Troopers. Last thing I want is a cock-up when I’m on the home stretch, but letting down this district for King Kirkbride and a pack of city politicians sticks in my gullet.’

‘Reinstate me.’

‘No.’

‘If I’m right – and I am – then the Bourke Mounted Troopers get the glory of the pursuit and capture of notorious killers.’

Glory – now there’s a word to make every law officer get out of bed in the morning.

‘If I’m sacked,’ I continued, ‘and you let them slip away, I doubt Lonergan and Parry, who risked their lives, would be content to let this stand. And then the Bourke division will look like a pack of dills who couldn’t find their arse with both hands.’

He thought for an unconscionably long time, as if waiting for a nod from the goldfish, who, in his evil piscine soul, wanted to see me suffer. Eventually Corcoran nodded. ‘Reinstated.’

Sergeant Martin knocked and came in, then looked me up and down with distaste. ‘You should smarten up, Constable.’

‘I’ve been in the field, sir.’

‘That’s no excuse.’

‘Oh, for fu—’

‘Enough,’ Corcoran snapped, stabbing his cigarette out into an ashtray that I’m sure he wished was Martin’s eye, or mine.

Corcoran’s clerk brought in a pot of coffee and some cups and we took out notebooks and settled in to thrash it all out.

‘Right,’ Corcoran said, reading from the paper in front of him. ‘They’ve been charged with Albert Jong’s murder, to which they have confessed. But we only have circumstantial evidence for Beavins and the Kirkbrides.’

‘Who is Jong?’ Martin asked.

‘He was an escaped lunatic found dead on his parents’ property at Curranyalpa,’ I said. ‘Hirst and Shawcross confessed to me that they killed Albert Jong by shooting. I asked why they didn’t bash him like Beavins or the Kirkbrides and they replied because he was mad. Thereby confessing to the Beavins and Kirkbride murders.’

‘That won’t hold up in court as a confession,’ Corcoran said. ‘We need more.’

‘Why did you assume Albert Jong killed himself?’ Martin asked.

‘He was naked except for his mum’s apron and with a rifle in his hands. It looked like he’d shot himself but that’s what I was expecting to find so I didn’t pursue it. Now we question them about Beavins and the Kirkbrides.’

‘But the Kirkbride killers are in Queensland,’ Martin said. ‘We know that – they found the Kirkbride leather holdall.’

‘We don’t know it, we assume it,’ Corcoran said. ‘Kirkbride could have been mistaken about the bag.’

A clerk knocked on the door, then opened it and said, ‘You’re needed downstairs, sir.’

‘Important?’

‘The mayor, sir, asking about the arrests.’

‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ Corcoran said, leaving Martin and me staring at each other. The stench of mutual loathing filled the office; at some random signal it could quickly turn into a right old collie shangles.

‘There is evidence that the killers went to Queensland,’ Martin began. ‘That gets up your nose, I know, and so you’ve constructed this whole mad tale and inserted yourself in the centre of it to cover for your failings.’

‘I know you burnt the victims’ clothes when you were supposed to retain them as evidence,’ I countered.

‘Ever the know-it-all, aren’t you, Hawkins,’ he said. ‘Let me ask you this: do you have children?’

‘Is that a rhetorical question?’

‘I don’t know how many bastards you’ve sired, and I daresay you don’t either,’ he smirked. ‘But let me tell you, to lose three of your children to murder is one of the cruellest blows a parent can suffer. I have four children and—’

‘I know, the Kirkbrides have suffered, but—’

‘I did what Kirkbride asked because he and Mrs Kirkbride have been – and still are – in hell. I know it was wrong, but it was for the right reasons. You go stirring this up again and it goes to trial, they will have to relive the whole thing, including Miss Flora, who is in no state to cope with it. All the terrible details of the way they died will come out.’

‘You can’t just pervert the course of justice because people are hurting,’ I said, thinking of the thruppence love token I’d held back because I’d wanted to solve the crime. ‘You can’t let these killers get away with it.’

‘But we aren’t,’ Martin said. ‘They have confessed to Jong’s murder. Gaol for life or a hangman’s noose, and the Kirkbrides are left alone. There’s justice done.’

I realised he didn’t know Grace had been pregnant, or that she’d had an abortion and was dying when she was shot. Flora must have told her parents on the Sunday morning, while they were still in Cobar – told them where Jimmy, Nessie and Grace had gone and why. It would have been horror heaped on horror for Janet and Robert Kirkbride. They, somewhere in that nightmare of pain, found the strength to try to cover up the pregnancy and abortion. Kirkbride told Martin to burn the clothes and apply for a stay of autopsy on Grace due to her age. And Martin did it because he felt sorry for them.

A trial would bring out all these details. If Kirkbride felt he was grist for the gawpers now, wait until they got the details of Grace’s rape and pregnancy, the illegal botched abortion, the rape and mutilation of Nessie. The population would be transfixed, and King Kirkbride would topple into the dust, his family a byword for immorality and shame, an Ozymandias left broken in the sands.

Unfortunate? Yes. But I needed everyone to know I had atoned for my sin. I had found the Kirkbride killers and caught them, and they would be put to trial, sentenced and hanged, and I would be exonerated, my honour redeemed.

Corcoran came back into the room and settled behind his desk. ‘Where were we?’

‘The Kirkbride case is closed, and we charge them with the only murder we have evidence for, and that is of Albert Jong,’ Martin said.

Corcoran slammed the desk with his fist. ‘No. Hawkins has made a good case. We’ll bring in Sally Gilmour for questioning and then we have our witness.’

I took a deep breath and thought of Flora, struggling with grief, her grip on life tenuous. She’d been through enough and would never recover if a scandal blew up.

‘We got the killers and we can lock them up. Best result for the district,’ I said, avoiding Corcoran’s eyes. ‘And we don’t have to recall the detectives.’

Fed up, Corcoran shook his head, sighed. ‘All right, the shooting death of Albert Jong it is. Is he still where you buried him?’

‘I expect so.’

‘Right, you’ll need to talk to the Jong family about an exhumation before we send the official request.’

~

Shawcross and Hirst had been in solitary cells all night, fed and briefed by the lawyer so they knew what the charge was, but had not seen each other since being locked up. We all crowded into the stuffy interview room, Martin and me, one suspect, the solicitor and a stenographer. They perched on rickety chairs, as did we. There was a scarred and worn pine table between us and a high-barred window above, and all of us were armed with notebooks and files, except for the prisoner, cocky and defiant, but handcuffed.

We began with Hirst, the one with the gold signet ring and the stubble like a burnt wheatfield. Up close, the deep lines around his eyes were visible, the whites of his eyes yellowing already from a life in the sun. The breath on him could fell a dog at twenty paces. To be in a small, airless room with him was a feat of endurance.

‘Shawcross done it,’ he said as soon as we were settled.

Martin looked at me. The solicitor whispered something in Hirst’s ear and Hirst shoved him away with his shoulder.

‘Done what, exactly?’ I asked.

‘Beavins. Beavins, Jong and the three Kirkbrides too.’

The stenographer wrote it down word for word. Martin, the solicitor and I all exchanged looks. But I pressed on, because who was I to prevent these charming fellows from confessing their sins?

‘You had nothing to do with it?’

‘Nope. Tried to stop him.’

‘Tell us exactly what happened with the Kirkbrides,’ Martin said.

‘We was at the dance and there wasn’t much going on. Beavins is all angry when Jimmy Kirkbride turns up, says he wants to teach him a lesson. We say, “Come drinking with us instead.” So we rode back towards Calpa, found a place by the river and shared a bottle. Beavins kept checking the road—’

I looked up from my notebook. ‘Your horses?’

‘With us.’

‘Go on.’

‘He comes running back through the scrub saying, “It’s him, Jimmy Kirkbride, are you with me?” Shawcross’ll be in anything violent, so they run off. Next thing I hear a gunshot and I run after ’em and I see the young girl’s dead, so’s Jimmy Kirkbride, and they’re taking turns with Nessie Kirkbride. Then when they’re done Shawcross kills her with his rifle butt.’

‘Did you try to stop him?’ Martin asked.

‘Shawcross is a mean bastard, you don’t want to stop him when he’s got the taste of blood. I panicked, ran off into the bush, and then I ran back to them because I knew I was a dead man if I didn’t stick with Toby. Spent the next day arguing about what to do, then we agreed to act like nothing happened, or that we didn’t know.’

I took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, put down my pen. Fucking animals.

‘You could have come to the police with this information,’ Martin said.

‘And you would have protected me from them two?’

‘You’d have been in a cell, Mr Hirst, where they couldn’t get you.’

‘What about the money Beavins had?’ I asked.

Hirst came over all sly. ‘He was paid to get at Jimmy. Paid to knock him around. Told us this the next day, the bastard. Shawcross wanted half the money, but Beavins said nope. So Shawcross killed him.’

‘Buried him alive?’

Hirst shrugged.

‘Who paid to have Jimmy beaten?’ Martin asked.

‘Not saying – not unless you can make this go away for me. I done nothing.’

Martin and I left the room to confer. I was way out of my depth. I was catch and coerce, not plea bargains. Corcoran was called down and we conferred in the narrow hallway.

‘We need to recall the detectives to do this properly,’ I said.

‘Do you believe him?’ Martin asked me.

‘We’ll have to question Shawcross. He’ll probably say it was Hirst who did it, but it’s on the record now so let’s move forward with it.’

Martin ummed and ahhed. ‘The case is closed.’

‘You heard their confessions,’ Corcoran said. ‘I say the case is open again. I’ll deal with Sydney and whatever tripe they want to bung on. Go and interview the other man, see what he says.’

Corcoran went to wire the detectives and Martin and I looked at each other.

‘They’ll go through all the evidence again, and the statements,’ he said, the colour draining from his face.

‘You better pray that they plead guilty so there’s no trial.’

‘I was just helping a friend, that’s all.’ The consequences of Martin’s actions filtered through that calcified brain of his like groundwater into a dark cave, poor bastard. ‘I’ll lose my job. I’ve got four kids. I just did as he asked. I thought there was no chance of catching the killers.’

‘Come on,’ I sighed. ‘Let’s go back in, see what Shawcross has to say.’