Pride's Harvest (6 page)

“Anyone else?”

Again Baldock took his time before answering. “There's an Abo kid they had working here, but Sagawa sacked him last month. Wally Mungle knew him, they're cousins. Then maybe there are half a dozen others, but we've got nothing on any of „em.”

“
Where do we start then?”

Baldock shrugged. “Start at the bottom and work up.”

“Who's at the bottom?” But Malone could guess.

“The Abo, of course.” Baldock said it without malice or prejudice. It struck Malone that the local sergeant was not a racist and he was pleased and relieved. Baldock might have his prejudices about Wogs, but that had nothing to do with race. Malone did wonder if there were any European Jews, refugees, in Collamundra and how they were treated by Baldock and the locals. He hoped there would be none of those on the suspect list.

“His name's Billy Koowarra,” said Baldock.

“Where can I find him?”

“At the lock-up. He was picked up last night as an IP.” Intoxicated Person: the all-purpose round-up lariat.

Malone saw Clements and Mungle come out of the office, where they had been questioning the office staff. He said delicately, a tone it had taken him a long time to acquire, “Curly—d'you mind if I ride back with Wally? You go with Russ.”

Baldock squinted, not against the sun. “Are you gunna go behind my back?”

“No, I promise you there'll be none of that. But you've had some trouble with the blacks out here, haven't you? I read about it in a quarterly report.”

“That was six or eight months ago, when all the land rights song and dance was going on. All the towns with Abo settlements outside them had the same trouble. It's been quiet lately, though.”

“Well, I think Wally will talk more freely to me about his cousin Billy if you're not listening to him. Am I right?”

Baldock nodded reluctantly. “I guess so. He's a good bloke, Wally. It hasn't been easy for him, being a cop.”

“It's not that easy for us, is it?”

Baldock grinned. “I must tell him that some day.”

Then
Clements and Mungle arrived. At the same time Koga, who had gone back into the gin shed, came out and walked towards the policemen. He was wide of them, looking as if he wanted to avoid them; his step faltered a moment, then he went on, not looking at them, towards the office. The four policemen looked after him.

“How did he get on with Sagawa?”

“We don't know,” said Baldock. “I asked Barry Liss about that, but he said he couldn't tell. He said the two of them were like most Japs, or what he thought most Japs were like. Terribly polite towards each other. I gather Koga never opened his mouth unless Sagawa asked him to.”

“Is he on your list?”

“He will be, if you want him there.”

“Put him on it.” Then Malone turned to Clements. “Well, how'd you go?”

“Bugger-all. Nobody understands why it happened. None of the drivers saw anything unusual in any of their loads, not when they brought the loads in from the fields.”

Malone glanced at Baldock. “Did the Physical Evidence boys find any blood on any of the trucks or buggies?”

“None.”

“What time do they start work here?”

“The pickers start at seven in the morning,” said Mungle in his quiet voice; it was difficult to tell whether he was shy or stand-offish. “The gin starts up at seven thirty. If the feeder was stopped at eight fifteen or thereabouts, that means the body must of been in the first or second load brought in the day before the murder. No one can remember who would have been driving that particular buggy.”

“Our only guess,” said Clements, “is that he was shot during the night and the killer scooped out a module, put the body in and re-packed the cotton again. They tell us that would be difficult but not impossible.”

“He could have been brought in by the murderer in a buggy,” said Malone. “Wally, would you ask Koga to step out here again?”

Mungle
went across to the office and while he was gone Malone looked about him, faking bemusement. Baldock said, “What are you looking for?”

“Media hacks. Down in Sydney they'd be around us like flies around a garbage tip. Don't you have any out here?”

“There's the local paper and the radio station. They were out here Tuesday morning, getting in our way, as usual. They'll be making a nuisance of themselves again, soon's they hear you're taking over.”

“I thought they'd have heard that anyway,” Malone said drily. “I don't want to see „em, Curly. This is your turf, you handle them. You're the police spokesman, okay?”

Then Koga, diffident as before, came back with Wally Mungle. “You wanted me, Inspector?” The thin, high voice broke, and he coughed. “Excuse me.”

“What sort of security do you have out here, Mr. Koga?”

“None, Inspector. Mr. Sagawa and I live—lived over there in the manager's house.” He pointed to a farmhouse, a relic of whatever the farm had once been, a couple of hundred yards away. “We were our own security. It was good enough, Mr. Sagawa thought . . .”

But not good enough, Malone thought. “Where were you Monday night?”

The question seemed to startle Koga; he took off his glasses, as if they had suddenly fogged up; he looked remarkably young without them. “I—I went into town to the movies.”

“What did you see?” Malone's voice was almost too casual.

Koga wiped his glasses, put them back on. “It was called
Sea of Love.
With Al Pacino.”

Malone looked at Baldock and Mungle. “I saw that down in Sydney at Christmas.”

“It's already been on out here,” said Mungle. “They brought it back—by popular demand, they said. I think the locals were hoping the cop would be bumped off the second time around.”

Malone looked at Clements. “I thought you said this was a conservative district?” Then he turned back to Koga, who had listened to all this without really understanding the cops' sardonic acceptance of the public's attitude towards them. “Was Mr. Sagawa at the house when you got back from town?”

Koga
shook his head. “No, he did not come home at all that night.”

“Did that worry you?”

“Not really. Mr. Sagawa liked to—” he looked at Baldock; then went on, “—he liked to gamble.”

Malone raised an eyebrow at Baldock, who said, “Ray Chakiros runs a small baccarat school out at the showgrounds a coupla nights a week, Mondays and Thursdays. We turn a blind eye to it. It never causes us any trouble.”

Malone wondered how much money had to change hands for no trouble to be caused; but that wasn't his worry. “All right, Mr. Koga, that'll do. Thanks for your time.”

Koga bowed his head and Malone had to catch himself before he did the same; he did not want to be thought to be mocking the young Japanese. Koga went back to the office and Malone turned to the others. “Righto, let's go back to town. Russ, you take Curly. Wally can ride with me.”

Clements was not the world's best actor, but he could put on an admirable poker face. Wally Mungle's own dark face was just as expressionless. He got in beside Malone and said nothing till they had driven out past the fields and on to the main road into town. As they did so, Malone noticed that all the cotton pickers, the trucks and the buggies had stopped and their drivers were staring after the two departing police cars. He looked back and saw that Koga had come out on to the veranda of the office and was gazing after them. He wondered how far the young man, with his thick glasses, could see.

Mungle said, “Are you gunna ask me some questions you didn't want Sergeant Baldock to hear? I don't go behind his back, Inspector.”

“I'm glad to hear it. No, Sergeant Baldock knows what I'm going to ask you. It's about your cousin Billy Koowarra.”

“Yeah, I thought it might be.” Mungle nodded. He had taken off his hat and a long black curl dangled on his forehead like a bell-cord. He was a good-looking man, his features not as broad as those of a full-blood; his nose was straight and fine, and Malone wondered what white man had dipped his wick in tribal waters. He knew, from his experience in Sydney, that the mixed-bloods were the most difficult to deal with. They saw the world through mirrors, all of them cracked.

“
How long have you been a cop, Wally?”

“Four years.”

“Any regrets?”

Mungle stared ahead of them down the long black strip of macadam, shining blue in parts as if pools of water covered it. A big semi-trailer came rushing at them and he waited till it had roared by. “Sometimes.”

“They treat you all right at the station?”

“I'm the token Abo.” He smiled, as much to himself as to Malone. “No, they're okay.”

There had been a recruiting campaign to have more Aborigines join the police force, but so far there had been a scarce response. Every time Malone saw a TV newsreel of police action in South Africa, he was amazed at the number of black Africans in uniform, many of them laying into their fellow blacks with as much enthusiasm as their white colleagues. That, he knew, would never happen here.

“What about amongst your family and the other blacks?”

“My mum's proud of me. I never knew my dad.” He offered no more information on his father and Malone didn't ask. “The rest of the Kooris—” He shrugged. “Depends whether they're sober or not. When they've had a skinful, some of „em get real shitty towards me.”

“What sort of education did you have?”

“I got to Year Eleven. One time I dreamed of getting my HSC and going on to university.” He was a dinkum Aussie: he had said
haitch
for H. It was a characteristic that always brought a laugh from Lisa, the foreigner. “We Kooris are supposed to live in the Dreamtime. Some of us have different dreams to others.”

Malone could think of nothing to say to that; so he said, “What about your cousin Billy?”

“Is he a suspect?”

“I don't know. What about him?”

“He's a silly young bugger, but that's all I'm gunna say about him. We Kooris stick together, Inspector. Anyone will tell you that, especially the whites.”

Malone
abruptly pulled the car into the side of the road, just opposite the grain silos on the edge of town. “Wally, let's get one thing straight from the start. I've got my faults, but I'm not a racist. I don't care what yours or Billy's or anybody else's skin is like, I treat them with respect till something happens to make me change my mind. But whatever changes my mind, it has nothing to do with the colour of their skin. Now can you get that through your black skull?”

Wally Mungle, like most Aborigines Malone had known, had a sense of humour. He suddenly smiled his beautiful smile. “Fair enough.”

Malone started up the car again. “Before we see Billy, take me down to the black settlement. I don't want to talk to anyone, just look at the conditions there.”

“I don't live down there, y'know. My mother does, but I don't.”

“Where do you live?” Malone put the question delicately. Twice in fifteen minutes he had had to be delicate: it might lead to cramp in a tongue that, too often, had got him into trouble.

“I've got three acres over the other side of the river. I live there with my wife and two kids.”

“Is she black?”

Mungle looked sideways at him. “Does it matter?”

They went round the war memorial; it seemed to Malone that the Anzac was ready to swivel on his pedestal, his bayonet at the ready. They drove down the main street, which was full now with cars and trucks parked at an angle to the kerb. It seemed to Malone, imagination working overtime, that people coming out of the stores stopped to stare at him and Wally Mungle. In the shade of the stores' awnings men and women stood motionless, heads turned in the unmarked police car's direction, ears strained for Malone's answer.

They had reached the far end of the main street before Malone said, “No, it doesn't matter if she's black. But I'm a stranger here, it's a whole new turf to me, and people around here don't look at things the way I'm used to. I've learned that just since I got in last night.”

“Fair enough. Yeah, Ruby's black. She's a mixed-blood, like me. We would of been called half-castes in the old days, but that's out now. Ruby's what the Yanks call a quadroon, or used to. She's got
more
white blood than me, it shows.”

“She got white relatives around here?”

A slight hesitation, then a nod: “Yeah, but they'd never admit to it. She doesn't press it, she's quite happy with things the way they are. By the time our kids grow up, things will have changed—we hope. They'll be white enough to be accepted.”

“What are they, how old?”

“A boy, six, and a girl, three. Nobody would know they're Kooris, they could pass for Wogs.”

“Is that what you want for them when they grow up, to pass for Wogs?”

“No.” He said it quietly, but his voice was emphatic. “I want „em to be Kooris. I just don't want „em discriminated against because of the colour of their skin. I've had enough of that. You got any kids?”

“Yes. Pure white, all three of them. The only discrimination against them is that their father is a cop.”

“My kids have got that, too.” But he smiled his beautiful smile again. “Okay, turn off here.”

They were just beyond the edge of town, coming to a two-lane bridge over the river, the Noongulli. Malone turned off on to a red-dirt track that led parallel to the river and soon came to the Aboriginal settlement. At first glance the location was idyllic. There was a wide bend in the river and a small beach of flood-washed sand on the far side of the grey-green stretch of slow-moving water. Red river-gums, their trunks blotched like an old man's skin, hung over the river as if looking for fish to jump to the bait of their leaves. Shade dappled the ground under a stand of yellowbox and on the far side of the river Malone could see the white rails of the racecourse seeming, at this distance, to hover above the ground like a giant magic hoop that had become fixed without any visible support. A white heron, looking in the reflected sunlight from the river almost as insubstantial as if it were made of no more than its own powder-down, creaked in slow motion up towards the bridge. Then Malone saw the reality.