The Broken Shore (35 page)

He turned a photograph over:
Companions Camp 1979.

The names were written in pencil in a loose hand: back row, middle row, front row.
At left: Mr Percy Crake. At right: Mr Robin Bonney, Mr Duncan Vallins.

Vallins was the tall man, Bonney the dark, solid one.

Cashin looked for the name and he found it in 1977.

David Vincent was in the middle row, a skinny, pale boy, long-necked, his adam’s apple and the bumps on his shoulders visible. His head was turned away slightly, apprehensively, as if he feared some physical harm from the photographer.

Cashin read the other names, looked at the faces, looked away and thought. He fetched the telephone and dialled, listened, eyes closed. David Vincent was out or out of it. He rang Melbourne, had to wait for Tracy.

‘Two names,’ he said. ‘Robin Bonney. Duncan Vallins. Appreciate and so on.’

‘You are Singo’s clones,’ she said. ‘You and the boss. Have people told you that?’

‘They’ve told me young Clint Eastwood. Does that square with you?’

‘And so on. You going to actually speak to me the next time you come in here? As opposed to acknowledging my existence?’

A dog rose on the sofa and, in an indolent manner, put its paws on the floor and did a stretch, backside high above its head. The other dog followed suit, an offended look.

‘Preoccupied then,’ said Cashin. ‘I’m sorry. Still married to that bloke in moving?’

‘No. Divorced.’

‘Right. Moved on. Well, next time I’m in we can exchange some more personal information. Blood types, that kind of thing.’

‘I’m holding my breath. Got a Robin Gray Bonney here. Age fifty-seven. Possibility?’

‘About right.’

‘Former social worker. Form is child sex offender. Suspended sentence on two charges. Then he did four years of a six.’

‘More and more right.’

‘Well, he’s dead. Multiple stab wounds, castrated, mutilated and strangled. In Sydney. Marrickville. That’s, that’s two days ago. No arrest.’

Cashin tried to do the front stretch exercise, the opening of the shoulderblades, felt all the muscles resist.

‘Here we go,’ said Tracy. ‘Vallins, Duncan Grant, age fifty-three. Anglican priest, address in Brisbane, Fortitude Valley but that’s 1994. Child sex form, suspended sentence 1987. Did a year in 1994–95. I presume he’s a former priest now.’

‘Why would you presume that? Trace, three things. All the details on Bonney. The mutilation. Two, on Vallins, beg Brisbane to check that address and stress we don’t want him spooked. Three, tell Dove we need the coroner’s report on a fire at the Companions camp, Port Monro, in 1983.’

He was at the window. Ragged-edged ribbons of pink ran down the sky, died on the black hill.

Same night as the fire. Double tragedy.

Cecily Addison’s words. Bourgoyne’s wife fell down the stairs on the night of the fire. Tranquillisers blamed.

‘Now that I think about it,’ he said, ‘I might come to town. Pass that on to the boss, will you?’

‘I’ll pass it on to all the lovesick in this building. Dove’s here, want to talk to him?’

‘No, but put him on anyway.’

Clicks.

‘Good day,’ said Dove. ‘The CrimeStoppers log on Bourgoyne. You looked at it?’

‘How the fuck would I have looked at it?’

‘I don’t think anyone’s looked at it. On the night it was on television, a woman rang. She saw it, rang straight away. Mrs Moira Laidlaw. Her words are, I suggest you investigate Jamie Bourgoyne.’

‘That’s it?’

‘That’s it.’

‘Well, Jamie’s dead. Drowned in Tasmania.’

‘You don’t have to drown to be dead in Tasmania, but I thought this was worth a sniff. Is that it? Sniff? Snuff?’

‘You’ve talked to her?’

‘This is ten minutes old. I rang but you were busy.’

‘Get the full sweep on the dead Jamie. Tracy’ll tell you what else. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

Cashin knew he should go immediately, tell Villani, get in the vehicle and go. He knew he wouldn’t. What did it matter now?

‘I SAW HIM quite clearly,’ said the old woman in a dry and precise voice. ‘I was waiting at the lights in Toorak Road and they changed and a car stopped. For some reason, I looked and Jamie was in the passenger seat.’

‘You knew him well, Mrs Laidlaw?’ said Cashin.

‘Of course. He’s my nephew, my sister’s child. He lived with us for a time.’

‘Right. And you saw him when?’

‘About six weeks ago. On a Friday. I go shopping and have lunch with friends on Fridays.’

It was just past 4 pm but Cashin thought that it felt much later in the sitting room, the light dim outside, a row of raindrops waiting to fall from a thin branch framed in the French doors. ‘And you know that Jamie is said to have drowned in Tasmania in 1993?’ he said.

‘Yes. Well, obviously he didn’t because I saw him in Toorak Road.’

Cashin looked at Dove, passed to him that there was no point in questioning the identification.

‘May I ask why you thought we should investigate Jamie over the assault on his step-father?’ said Dove.

‘Because he’s alive and he’s capable of it. He hates Charles Bourgoyne.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘I have no idea. Ask Erica.’ She turned her head and the light made her short hair gleam.

‘When last did you see Jamie?’ said Dove. ‘Before Toorak Road, I mean.’

‘He came to my husband’s funeral. Turned up at the church. God knows how he knew. Didn’t talk to anyone except Erica. Not a word to his step-father.’

‘He liked your husband?’ said Cashin.

She picked at nothing on her cardigan. ‘No. And my husband certainly wasn’t fond of him.’

‘Why was that?’

‘He didn’t like him.’

Cashin waited but nothing came. ‘Why didn’t he like him, Mrs Laidlaw?’

She looked down. A dove-grey cat had come into the room and was leaning against her right leg. It was staring at Cashin, eyes the colour of ash. ‘My husband never forgot his nephew’s death. His brother’s only son. Mark drowned in the pool when he was ten. Jamie was here. No one else.’

‘Was there a suspicion that Jamie was involved?’

‘No one said anything.’

‘But your husband thought he was?’

She blinked at Cashin. ‘Jamie was three years older than Mark, you see.’

Cashin felt the silken ankle-winding of the cat. ‘Was that important?’

‘He was supposed to be looking after Mark. We loved Mark very much. He’d been with us since he was six. He was like a son to us.’

‘I see. And Jamie came to your husband’s funeral?’

‘Yes. Out of the blue and dressed like some sort of hippy musician.’

‘When was that?’

‘In 1996. The twelfth of May 1996. He came here the next day.’

‘Why?’

‘He wanted a photograph of Mark. He asked if he could have one. He knew where the photographs were too, where we kept Mark’s things. He said he’d thought of Mark as a brother. Quite unbelievable, frankly.’

‘And you never saw him again?’

‘No. Not until Toorak Road. A cup of tea? I could make tea.’

‘No thank you, Mrs Laidlaw,’ said Dove. ‘How long did Jamie live with you?’

She took off her glasses, touched the corner of an eye carefully, replaced them. ‘Not very long. Less than two years. He came after he stopped boarding at the college. His step-father asked us.’

‘And that was here?’

‘Here?’

‘You lived in this house then?’ said Cashin.

Mrs Laidlaw looked at him as if he were not the full quid. ‘We’ve always lived here. I grew up here, my grandparents built this house.’

‘And after Jamie finished school…?’

‘He didn’t finish school. He left.’

‘He left school?’

‘Yes. And he left here. He was in year eleven and one day he just left.’

‘Where did he go?’

‘I don’t know. Erica told me he was in Queensland at one point.’

A telephone rang in the passage.

‘Excuse me.’

Cashin and Dove stood up with her. She walked slowly to the door and Cashin went to the French doors and looked at the garden, at the big bare trees—an oak, an elm, a tree he couldn’t identify. Their leaves had not been raked and they lay in soggy drifts. A stone retaining wall was leaning, blocks loose. Soon it would collapse, the worms would be revealed.

‘These charity calls,’ said Mrs Laidlaw. ‘I don’t really know what to say to the people. They sound so nice.’

She sat down in her chair. The cat elevated itself into her lap. Cashin and Dove sat.

‘Mrs Laidlaw, why did Jamie stop boarding at the school?’ said Cashin.

‘I didn’t hear the details. The school could tell you, I suppose.’

‘And the reason he left here?’

‘You might ask the school about that too. I’d be lying if I said his departure wasn’t a great relief.’

She stroked the cat, looking at it. ‘Jamie was a strange boy. He was very attached to his mother and I don’t think he got over her death. But there was something else about him…’

‘Yes?’

‘Silent, always watching, and somehow scared. As if you might hurt him. Then he’d do these horrible things. Once when he was here for the weekend from school he made a bow and arrow and shot the cat next door. Through the eye. He said it was an accident. But there was a dog set on fire down the road. We knew it was Jamie. And he drowned Mark’s budgies in the pool. In their cage.’

She looked from Cashin to Dove. ‘He used to read my husband’s medical books. He’d sit on the floor in the study and look at anatomy texts for hours.’

‘Do you know anyone he might be in contact with?’ said Cashin.

She was stroking the cat, her head down. ‘No. He had a friend at school, another problem boy. They expelled him, I gather.’

‘What school did he go to, Mrs Laidlaw?’

‘St Paul’s. The Bourgoynes all went to St Paul’s. Gave it a lot of money.’

‘You said he hated Charles Bourgoyne.’

‘Yes. I didn’t realise how much until I suggested he might like to spend a holiday with Charles. He’d been spending them here. He ran into the front door with his head. Deliberately. And he sat there on the floor screaming no, no, no, over and over. Sixteen stitches in his scalp, that’s what it took.’

‘Thank you for your help, Mrs Laidlaw.’

‘You’re not what I expected.’ She was looking at Dove.

‘We come in all types,’ Cashin said.

She smiled at Dove, an affectionate smile, as if she knew him and thought well of him.

They went down the passage to the front door. Cashin said, ‘Mrs Laidlaw, I have to ask you. Is there even the slightest doubt in your mind over the man you saw in Toorak Road? Is it possible that it wasn’t Jamie?’

‘No doubt at all. I’m perfectly sane, I had my glasses on and it was Jamie.’

‘You told Erica you’d seen him?’

‘Yes. I rang her as soon as I got home.’

‘What did she say?’

‘Nothing really. Yes, dear, that sort of thing.’

A thin but steady rain fell on the men as they walked down the balding gravel path and along the pavement to the vehicle. The gutters were running, carrying leaves and twigs and acorns. In some dark tunnel, they would meet the sordid human litter of the city and go together to the cold slate bay.

It came to Cashin as they reached the car. ‘Be back in a sec,’ he said.

Mrs Laidlaw opened the door as if she’d been waiting behind it. He asked her.

‘Mark Kingston Denby,’ she said. ‘Why?’

‘Just for the record.’

In the car, Cashin said, ‘The school. The expelled friend.’

THE DEPUTY headmaster was in his fifties, grey-suited, tanned and fit-looking like a cross-country skier. ‘School policy is that we do not disclose information about students or staff, past or present,’ he said. He smiled, snowy teeth.

‘Mr Waterson,’ said Cashin, ‘we’ll ruin your evening. We’ll be back inside an hour with a warrant and a truck to take away all your files. And who knows, the media might show up too. Can’t keep anything secret these days. So St Paul’s will be all over the television news tonight. The parents will like that, I’m sure.’

Waterson scratched his cheek, a pink square-cut nail. He wore a copper bracelet. ‘I’ll need to consult,’ he said. ‘Please excuse me a moment.’

Dove went to the office window. ‘Dusk on the playing fields,’ he said. ‘Like England.’

Cashin was looking at the deputy headmaster’s books. They all seemed to be about business management. ‘We fucked this thing up,’ he said. ‘So badly. I’m glad Singo’s not around to see it.’

‘Thank god it’s we,’ said Dove. ‘Imagine what it would be like to have fucked it up all by yourself. Even mostly.’

The door opened. ‘Follow me please, gentlemen,’ said Waterson. ‘I caught our legal adviser on her way home. She works here two days a week.’

They went down the corridor and into a big wood-panelled room.
A dark-haired woman in a pinstriped suit was at the head of a table that could seat at least twenty.

‘Louise Carter,’ said Waterson. ‘Detective Cashin and Detective Dove. Please sit down, gentlemen.’

They sat. Carter looked at them in turn.

‘This school jealously guards the privacy of its community,’ she said. She was about fifty, a long face, taut skin around her eyes, a slightly startled look. ‘We don’t accede to requests for information unless requested to do so by the community family or the community family member concerned, if that person is in a position to make such a request. And, even then, we reserve the right to exercise our own judgment on acceding to any requests.’

‘You’ve got that written in your hand,’ said Dove. ‘I saw you look down.’

She was not amused.

‘The community family I’m talking about is in serious shit,’ said Cashin. ‘Just yes or no, we’re in a hurry.’

Carter moved her mouth. ‘You can’t bully St Paul’s, detective. Perhaps you don’t realise the position it occupies in this city.’

‘I don’t give a bugger either. We’ll crawl all over the place. Inside an hour. Believe me.’

She didn’t blink. ‘What is it you want to know about these students?’

‘Why Jamie Bourgoyne was kicked out as a boarder, the name of the friend he had here who was expelled and why.’

A head movement of refusal. ‘Not possible. Please understand that the Bourgoyne family has a long and close association with the school. I’m afraid we can’t…’