Pride's Harvest (28 page)

“I thought they might've called off the ball,” said Malone. “Because of what happened this afternoon.”

“It was too late. Anyway, the proceeds are for the local hospital,” said Hugh Narvo. “It'll need the money. It's full up right now. There are seven injured jockeys in there.”

He and Malone, each with a beer glass in hand, were standing outside the hall, out of the stream of guests coming and going between the outdoor dance floor, the hall and the portable toilets fifty yards away on the edge of the scrub. Narvo, like most of the men, even the young ones, was in black tie
and
dinner jacket; though the young men, by now, had taken off their jackets and piled them in a heap in the back of a nearby utility truck. Malone was in the only suit he had brought with him from Sydney, but he was not alone in being less than formally dressed; there were other men in shirt-sleeves and neatly pressed moleskins and elastic-sided boots. Still, conservatism ruled: all the men, no matter what their outer dress, wore ties. At least for now.

“There's another thing, Scobie,” Narvo went on. He seemed more relaxed than at any time since Malone had met him; as if he had crossed some sort of sand-bar and, out amongst the waves, had found he didn't mind them at all. “This is not going to be a good year for people on the land.”

“It's not looking good for a lot of people in the city, either.”

“I guess so.” But Narvo sounded unconcerned for the city folk. “Wool prices are down, wheat's down, interest rates are still up. If the farmers don't make money, the town doesn't. Things are going to get worse before they get better and everybody knows it now. Some of these people here tonight may be broke before the end of the year. This ball may be their last chance to kick over the traces. Nobody was going to cancel it.”

Malone looked around him. He rarely, if ever, went to a ball in the city; he had certainly never been to a country ball. He had heard how wild and woolly they could be; country folk worked harder and played harder than their city cousins. It was still relatively early, but the pitch and volume were rising; yet he could see no sign of desperate reaching for pleasure, of dancing while the bushfires raged. Not yet, anyway.

“What about cotton? Is that still selling?”

“Yes. But there's only the South Cloud farm and gin and they're not going to let anyone else in here. They're owned by the Japanese.”

“Not all of it. There's a forty per cent local holding.”

Narvo paused as he was about to take another mouthful of beer. “You've got your facts.”

“I'm learning a few. If cotton prices are going to hold up, now'd be the time to buy into South Cloud, wouldn't it? Killing Sagawa would be a start to making the Japanese feel they weren't wanted.”

Narvo
said, and it sounded admiring, “You have imagination.”

“Ten or twelve years in Homicide and you have it, it sort of comes naturally. It helps to be part- Irish,” he grinned, and sipped his own beer, not particularly liking it. Under Lisa's tutelage he had developed a taste for European and even homegrown boutique beers, but he would not dare mention that out here, where it would be looked upon as a treasonable affectation. They might even think he was gay and run him out of town. “You don't think anyone killed Sagawa for that reason?”

“That would narrow the list of suspects, wouldn't it?”

“There's something else that might narrow the list of suspects. Sagawa's father was executed as a war criminal. Some ex-POW might have heard of that and decided on his own extended revenge. Are there any ex-POWs around here?”

“None that I know of.” Narvo showed no interest in what Sagawa's father had been. “Ray Chakiros would be the man to ask. He knows the war record of everyone back to the Duke of Wellington.”

“Was Chakiros at Waterloo?”

“You'd think so, to hear him talk.” Then a pleasant-looking blonde woman came out of the hall and put her arm in his. “You haven't met my wife Monica.”

“Are you two talking police business?” she said.

Malone shook hands with her, liking her friendly smile. “No. I've been admiring the way everyone dresses up out here. The races this afternoon, the ball.”

Monica Narvo looked down at her green evening dress with flounces that camouflaged her tendency towards plumpness. She had a practical air to her and he could imagine her making the dress, baking cakes for the ball supper, running the rock-solid sort of house that a policeman wished for.

“This is last year's dress. I'm not expected to keep up appearances, not like some of them around here.” She said it seemingly without malice; but Malone wasn't sure. “Amanda Nothling, for instance. If she wore the same frock twice to a ball or a dance, everyone would wonder if she was short of money.”

“
She and Amanda are the best of friends,” said Narvo, winking at Malone. “There she is out there, dancing with her son. What's she wearing this year, Monny?”

“It's a Chanel by Karl Lagerfeld.”

“I thought it was,” said Narvo, straight-faced.

Malone looked at him first: this wasn't a Narvo he had met before. Then he looked towards the dance floor, saw Amanda Nothling, brilliant in a shimmering silver sheath, dancing with a boy of about sixteen who already was turning into an image of his father: thick unruly hair, red-faced, running to fat. On an impulse he said, “Does she dance with out-of-towners?”

“If you genuflect first,” said Narvo and spluttered into his beer as his wife dug him in the ribs.

As he walked away from them, Malone noticed that Monica Narvo was questioning her husband. She, too, had evidently noticed the change in him.

Malone tapped the Nothling boy on the arm as he stepped up on to the raised dance floor. “May I cut in and dance with your mother?”

The boy, relieved, relinquished his hold on her: it was embarrassing, having to dance with your own mother. “Sure, sure, she's all yours. Thanks, Mum.” And was gone.

“I hope you don't mind me cutting in?”

“I don't mind, Inspector, so long as this isn't going to be an interrogation.” She was charming enough now, insinuating her body into his without being provocative. “You dance well. Somehow one expects policemen to be heavy-footed.”

“No, just heavy-handed. I haven't seen your husband this evening.”

“Is that why you asked me to dance?” She didn't act coyly annoyed. This woman was as sophisticated as any he had met, there were no grass seeds in her immaculately done hair.

He smiled: he was no nightclub smoothie, but he could try. “You know better than that, Mrs. Nothling.”

She smiled back, accepting him. “Max will be along. He's busy at the hospital. Some emergency ops on those jockeys who were injured this afternoon. I thought you handled those stupid blacks very well.
Very
dramatic, firing your gun like that. No one expected it.”

“I thought there was a lot of shooting around here, that they'd be used to it.”

She leaned away from him, but only from the waist; her pelvis remained against his. But she was not being provocative. She had her father's pale-blue eyes and, like his, they could turn to marble. “What does that mean?”

“Nothing,” he said innocently. “Do you want us to dance apart, like everyone is?”

“I don't do what everyone else does.” She eased back into his arms. They were both good dancers and they found their own rhythm to the beat of the music. “Are you wearing your gun tonight?”

He wondered if she was going to crack the old Mae West joke; and was glad when she didn't. “No, not tonight . . . Nobody seems upset about the shooting of Mr. Sagawa.”

He had remarked that, so far, no one at the ball appeared to have brought with them the resentment that he and Clements had experienced during their two days in town. Perhaps an unspoken moratorium had been declared, but only for tonight.

She stiffened again in his arms, but only slightly. “He—he was an outsider. The feeling would have been different if he had been a local.”

“I've gathered that, from a few others. How did you get on with him?”

“I told you I should only dance with you if it didn't turn into an interrogation. Enough, Inspector . . .” He waited for her to slide out of his arms; but she didn't. “Does your wife mind you dancing with strangers?”

“Not so long as they're women. Why?”

“She's just come out of the hall with Ida Waring and your detective friend. She's very attractive. You're a lucky man.”

“I know.”

“She's looking daggers at either you or me. Is she jealous?”

“I don't know. I've never given her any cause to be.”

“Oh my, ain't we goody-goody! Faithful husbands—the conservationists should be looking into
them,
they're a dying species. I'm as jealous as hell.” Then she seemed to regret the admission, because she smiled and said, “I'm joking. Jealousy never gets you anywhere, does it?”

He couldn't imagine her being jealous of the half-drunk slob she was married to; but maybe Nothling hadn't always been like that. “No, not in the end.”

“Are you speaking as a policeman or a marriage counsellor?”

“Both.”

They smiled at each other and for a moment their bodies melded together like lovers'. Then the music ended and he let her go. Only then did he say, trying his best not to sound like an interrogator, “Your father isn't here. Isn't he chairman of the ball committee?”

“You mean besides being chairman of everything else?” There was an edge to her smile, like a knife turned to the light.

He smiled, too, but with no edge. “Yes, I guess I do.”

“No, he's not on the committee at all. I'm chairwoman—one Hardstaff is enough for any committee . . . My father is at home, he's entertaining some Japanese who arrived today. He doesn't like these sort of shindigs—they aren't decorous enough for him. He doesn't understand young people.”

“Wasn't he ever young himself?” Like sixteen or seventeen and running Commos out of their home town with guns: very decorous.

“Oh yes. From what I've heard he was the wildest boy in the district. But we all change when we grow older, don't we?”

“Were you wild when you were young?”

She smiled, took the hand he offered her as she stepped down off the dance floor. “I still am, occasionally.”

“But never in Collamundra?”

“No, never in Collamundra. Thank you, Mr. Malone. Enjoy your stay.”

She walked away; like father, like daughter, every other inch an aristocrat; or perhaps in her the percentage was higher. Malone looked after her, watching what seemed like a royal progress through the
crowd.
Then he went over to join Lisa, Ida and Clements, stepping over two drunken youths wrestling each other like playful infants in the dust.

“Enjoy that?” said Lisa. “You looked as if you were feeling for every nook in Granny.” It was an old joke between them, the sort that married couples swap as shorthand, telling each other he or she has nothing to worry about.

“I don't think she's a granny.” He grinned at Clements. “Who is it sings „Jealous Woman'?”

“Liberace?”

“Where's Trevor?” Malone said to Ida.

“He's coming later. He and Gus Dircks are out at Chess Hardstaff's place, having a conference with those Japanese. Russ has been looking after me.”

Malone was glad that she and Clements were not standing arm-in-arm; though, he told himself, it was none of his business. He wondered why Chess Hardstaff should be playing host to the meeting of the Japanese executives and two of the local partners in South Cloud, in which he himself was supposed to have no financial interest. Unless he was standing in for Max and Amanda Nothling. Maybe he should have asked Amanda about that.

Tas Waring, still in his dinner jacket, came by with a pretty auburn-haired girl in a green dress that showed as much bosom as Malone had seen all night. Though she was steady enough on her legs, she was clinging to Tas's arm as if she would fall over if she let go. Malone was glad that Claire was back at Sundown with the other children, all of them being baby-sat by Sean Carmody. Her fourteen-year-old heart couldn't have taken such opposition in its stride.

Tas gave the elders a smile and, behind the girl's head, raised his eyebrows in despair as he took her up on to the dance floor.

“Poor Tas,” said Ida. “That's the girl who's already got her engagement ring, though he hasn't asked her yet. I hope he's not foolish enough to get her pregnant.”

“She's giving him every encouragement,” said Lisa. “She's not wearing any pants under that tight dress.”

Malone
looked at Clements. “They're marvellous. With eyes like that, why do we pay hundreds of thousands of bucks for macroscopes in the Department?”

The band had struck up again, an old-fashioned quickstep for the benefit of the older guests, those born around the same time as Irving Berlin. Malone took Lisa across to the dance floor and they glided through their steps, natural partners, each with an easy grace and rhythm. As they moved round the edge of the crowd he saw Wally Mungle and a pretty, coffee-coloured girl come round the corner of the hall and stand, almost shyly, like guests who had just realized they had stumbled into the wrong party. Then Amanda Nothling, a wine glass in her hand, came out of the hall, saw them and stepped across to where they were. She talked to them for a minute or two, speaking more to the girl than to Mungle. Her smile was friendly, but she was aloof, though not condescending. She gave a final smile to the girl, said something to Mungle and walked away to join a group of well-dressed matrons, her own kind: well, almost. Even with them she looked a little aloof, though still friendly.

Ida and Clements, the latter no natural dancer but trying hard on his flat feet, came up beside them. Once again Malone was glad to see that there was nothing intimate between them; they were dancing as far apart as Amanda Nothling and her young son had been. And once again he told himself it was none of his business.