Pride's Harvest (23 page)

“About ten million dollars, if all the outstanding options were to be taken up. That's a five-stand gin out there and we have twenty thousand hectares cleared, with eight thousand hectares already under crop. There's an option on another fifty thousand hectares that has to be taken up in the next three months. The original plan was to make this the largest cotton project in Australia. If we don't take up the option and clear the land, then we've put too much cash into what we've already developed.”

“Could you raise sufficient money for a buy-out, I mean locally?”

“I don't know. I doubt it. People around here are strapped for cash now—interest rates, poor crop prices, things like that. Normally this is a rich district, but already this year there have been six farms taken over by the banks.”

“
Who would buy in, then?”

“A Yank syndicate. Or some of the big money that's still down in Sydney or Melbourne, despite the slump. I'd be pushed out.”

“And you don't want that?”

“Scobie, we grow cotton here that's the equal of any grown anywhere in the world. We sell every bale we pack. I got in at the jump—why would I want to be bought out now, just when it's all coming to fruition?”

“Had any offer been made before Sagawa's murder, to buy out the Japs?”

A slight hesitation; a hand fiddled with the glasses. “Just a tentative one.”

“Who proposed it? The outsiders? Or someone local?”

“Like who?”

The tongue gave out the name, not the mind: “Chess Hardstaff, maybe?”

Waring put on his glasses. “We-ell, yes. He was the one who told us there was outside interest.”

“Yet he was the one who got the Japs here in the first place? Why didn't he invest then?”

“I wouldn't know. Chess plays everything close to his chest. Max Nothling said something one night when he was half-drunk. That if ever they open Chess up for heart surgery, they'll find his thorax packed tight with secrets. They won't have to slice open his sternum, there'll be a combination lock on it. I don't think anyone in the district knows what makes Chess tick, not even his daughter.”

“What about Max Nothling? Would he know?”

“Him least of all, probably. Chess and Max have never been close. Not till lately, that is.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Waring spread a hand, as if surprised by what he had just said. “I don't know, frankly. It just struck me then that lately I've seen them together more than ever before. It may be just coincidence, with the Cup meeting coming up. I just don't know.”

“Could Nothling raise enough money to share in the buy-out?”

“I doubt it. His wife, Amanda, has most of their money. She inherited quite a bit from her
grandfather,
old Sir Chester. She was his favourite.”

“Gus Dircks's wife also owns shares. Would they have enough to buy into the takeover?”

“You're asking me to divulge clients' confidential affairs. They're all clients of mine.”

“Forget I asked the question, Trev. You've just answered it.” Malone put down his empty cup, waved away Waring's offer of a refill. “The other night you said Sagawa had been to see you about threats. Did he show you the letters?”

“No.”

“You're a lawyer, he came to you for advice and you didn't ask to see the letters he was complaining about?”

“He didn't bring them with him. I never saw him again after that.”

“Your name isn't mentioned in the running sheet. Didn't any of the investigating officers come and question you?”

“No.”

“Where is South Cloud's registered office?”

“Care of this office.” Waring still wore his glasses; there was a pinched look to his face now, as if his eyes were suffering from focusing so carefully on Malone. “Look, if you're thinking of accusing me of murdering Ken Sagawa, I think I'll choose not to answer any more questions. Your family come to stay with mine, you come out to my house for dinner . . . Christ Almighty!” For a moment Malone thought he was going to burst into tears.

Malone stood up. “Trevor, I don't think you murdered Sagawa. You were happy with the status quo, with the Japs running things, am I right?”

Waring nodded, knowing there was still something to come.

“But—” Malone picked up his hat. “But I still think you know more than you've told me. Without knowing it—or, I dunno, maybe even knowing it—you could be an accessory before or after the fact. Think about it.”

He went out, the net still trawling in dark waters.

III

He went back to the police station and brought his own additions to the running sheets up to date. It looked like a weather forecast: waves were beginning to rise.

Then Clements came in and Malone said, “Let's go to the races.”

Driving out of town Clements said, “How'd you get on with Waring?”

“You ever feel you wish you hadn't started something?”

“I was with a girl once. She talked all the way through it, about what a month of aerobics would do for my agility. I was flat out being agile and there she was under me talking about aerobics. But I was too far in to stop, if you know what I mean.”

Malone laughed, feeling some of the tension and weariness slip away from him. Once he had come into the dressing-room at Adelaide Oval, having spent the whole day in the field and having bowled thirty-two overs while the temperature had hovered around the old hundred degrees F. mark; the dressing-room attendant had handed him a long cold beer, he had downed it in one long slow swallow, and living had become bearable again. Clements sometimes, as now, had that effect on him.

“I didn't get much out of Waring, nothing really concrete.”

“Just suspicions?” Clements nodded. “I know what you mean. But where would we be without them?”

“Pull in at the carnival first. I said I'd meet Lisa and the kids there.”

Lisa and Ida Waring and their respective children were waiting for them; with two exceptions. “Where's Claire?” said Malone.

“Tas is looking after her for the day,” said Lisa.

He looked at her teasing smile. “On a day like this, I thought he'd like to be with his mates.”

“Relax, Scobie,” said Ida, also smiling. A conspiracy of mothers, he thought: how can you lick „em? “Tas is a gentleman—or at least I know he is towards Claire. He's also trying to show he's independent. One of the local girls, he's taken her out a couple of times, is talking as if she has an option
on
him.”

Malone looked at her, suddenly no longer concerned for his daughter's moral safety: concerned, instead, for Ida and her family. How will I ever be able to face her if Trevor turns out to be implicated somehow in Sagawa's murder? Will she look on me as a gentleman if I have to arrest her husband?

“Where's Trevor? He's not here yet?”

“No, he rang to say he had a meeting with Max Nothling. Probably to do with the cotton farm, now the Japanese bosses have arrived.”

“Probably,” said Malone, trying to sound convinced.

Clements took the children off to the sideshows, a rich uncle bursting to splurge. Malone fell in between Lisa and Ida, feeling that sense of pride that is common to most men when they are escorting two good-looking women; even the least conceited of men can't help such a vanity. Both women were smartly, without being over-dressed; casual elegance, Malone thought, might be the phrase. He himself would never trouble the ghost of Beau Brummel; he saw no reason why his wardrobe should not last as long as, say, his teeth or his hair, both of which were still in mint condition. Yet he never stopped admiring Lisa for always being well-groomed. Walking between her and Ida, he felt the day becoming better by the minute. Somehow, tonight he would find somewhere to make love to Lisa.

“What are you looking so pleased about?” Lisa could sense the sex rising in him as plainly as if he were walking about naked.

“Nothing. I've just decided to keep my mind empty for the rest of the day.”

“Good,” said both women and each of them squeezed his arms.

They strolled through the happy crowd. The merry-go-round spun its wild-eyed horses to a wheezy waltz and the spruikers at the stalls sang their siren songs in raucous voices that would have made a flock of cockatoos sound musical. The autumn sun beat down out of a cloudless sky and the smell of hamburgers, hot dogs, meat pies and greasy chips hung in the still air. There was death, too, in the air but no stranger would have known it and the locals looked as if they had forgotten it. Malone tried his best to
do
the same.

They passed a stall and Fred Strayhorn raised a bamboo ring to Malone and gestured he should try his luck to win a kewpie doll for the ladies. Malone grinned and shook his head and Lisa said, “Just what I need, a kewpie doll. I thought they'd stopped making them.”

“This is a very old-fashioned carnival,” said Malone. “Soon there'll be nothing like this left.”

“I think the Governor-General's just arrived,” said Ida. “Let's go over to the course. Russ can bring the children over when he's had enough of spending his money on them. Look at him! He's getting into a Dodgem car with Tom. He's not very agile, is he?”

“He's working on it,” said Malone, laughing so freely that both women looked at him. He excused himself and went back to Strayhorn.

“Changed your mind, Mr. Malone?” The old man had had someone trim his hair and his beard; he looked almost handsome. He fingered the beard when he saw Malone glance at it. “I was gunna shave it off, but the girl who cut my hair, she told me not to. She looks after me and the elephants. She said all old fellers should look distinguished, we owe it to the young.”

“She's right. I'll try and remember that when I'm long in the tooth . . . Are you going to face up to Chess Hardstaff this afternoon?”

Strayhorn looked at him shrewdly. “What's it to you, Mr. Malone?”

“I'd like to be there to see it.” He couldn't keep the mind empty, no matter how much he might try.

“Righto. If I decide to do it, I'll give you the nod.” He spun a bamboo ring in his gnarled, scaly hands. “I don't think it's gunna make much difference to what happened seventeen years ago, but. That's all ancient history now.”

“So is what happened back in the thirties, when he and his dad ran you out of town.”

Strayhorn shook his head. “Ah no, Mr. Malone. That'll never be ancient history, not with me.”

He turned away to sell some rings to a couple of youths and their girls; Malone left him and caught up with Lisa and Ida. The former looked at him curiously.

“
What was that all about?”

“Ancient history,” he said, and she knew enough not to ask any more questions about the bearded old stranger.

They went into the racecourse, into the paddock enclosure, which was the only section where admittance was charged. The small grandstand was almost full, but Sean Carmody stood up and waved to them to come up and join him where he had kept seats for them. The paddock, a trim green sward at city racecourses, was a dust bowl here; but it had not deterred the women from dressing up. This was
the
meeting of the year, to be celebrated. The wealthier, more social couples might go down to Sydney for the big meetings; or even further south for the Melbourne Cup, the feast day of St. Bart and St. Tommy and other Heaven-bound trainers and jockeys. The locals, however, the ones content with life in and around Collamundra, chose this day to bring out their George Grosses and their Covers, to tramp their Maglis and Jourdans through three or four inches of dust; hats were worn, though not by all, and some even wore gloves, reminding Malone of photos he had seen in his mother's collection of old, yellowed
Sydney Mails.
The women were given a certain grace by what lay about their feet: they drifted above a thin brown mist of dust like models in a couturier's nightmare. Some of the men wore their best suits, all trousers brown up to the knees no matter what the colour of the rest of the suit; but most men, sensibly, wore moleskins and tweed jackets and elastic-sided boots; most of them, Malone saw, were conservative enough to wear ties. Whatever they wore, the aim was to show that the Collamundra Cup was a special occasion.

Dr. Bedi was there, elegant as a plump, brightly plumaged bird in a rich blue and cerise sari; she had the sense to stay out of the dust and remain seated in the grandstand. And Narelle Potter was there, too, gliding through the dust in a champagne-coloured knit that showed off her figure; she put on a dark sour look as an accessory when she looked up and saw Malone. She glanced past him and nodded and smiled at Sean Carmody and walked on towards where the horses were being saddled for the first race.

“Who's the lady with the figure?” said Lisa.

“Narelle Potter,” said Malone. “Our hotel-keeper.”

“She's bandy.”

“
It's an occupational hazard with her,” said Ida, smile thick with artificial sugar. “And I don't mean her hotel-keeping.”

“I hope she doesn't make your bed,” Lisa told Malone.

Just along from the Carmody seats the Governor-General was settling himself into a cane chair in the tiny official section that had been roped off. With him were Gus Dircks, political smile working so hard it sometimes seemed to be coming out of the back of his neck; and Chess Hardstaff, looking and acting more like the G-G than the actual man from Canberra. He was still standing several minutes after the vice-regal representative had sat down, dipping his silver head in slight nods to greetings from people all around him. The Governor-General, a little man in a grey homburg that sat on his head like a tea-cosy, gestured peevishly to the chair beside him and at last Hardstaff sat down. It would probably be the last time the G-G would visit Collamundra, at least while Chess Hardstaff was alive.