River of Salt Read online

  ‘Morning, Sergeant.’ He kept it formal between them in public. Edward was scooting around the back of the car, trying to dematerialise. ‘How can I help?’

  ‘Actually, Mr Saunders, it’s your friend I need to speak to.’

  Blake wondered where this was going.

  ‘Turn off the hose, Edward,’ he said.

  Edward did as he was told. Not surprisingly he was nervous.

  ‘You reside in a caravan, lot five in the caravan park, do you not?’

  Edward looked to Blake for reassurance. Blake nodded go ahead.

  ‘Yes, sir. I mean I don’t know the lot number.’

  ‘The caretaker says it’s yours. Do you recognise this?’ Nalder reached into the bag and pulled out a large National transistor radio. Blake noted the look of panic on Edward’s face.

  ‘I found it,’ he blurted.

  ‘Where’s this going?’ Blake felt he had to try and intervene.

  Nalder shot a scorching look at Edward. ‘The last few weeks, ever since around the time he came to town, we’ve had property and valuables being stolen from houses. Mainly up near the Heights.’

  ‘I didn’t steal that. Honest to God, I found it. Honest, boss.’ His eyes pleaded for Blake to believe him. Blake tried to remain calm. Nalder was worse if you got him offside, but maybe he could reason with him.

  ‘I don’t understand. Why did you check his caravan anyway?’

  ‘The caretaker heard music. He was aware of the robberies. He took a look.’

  ‘He can’t do that!’

  ‘It’s his property and if he believes it is being used for illegal purposes he has every right. This radio is from one of the houses.’

  Edward was scared stiff. ‘I found it, day before yesterday.’

  ‘Where?’

  It was Blake who asked the question, not Nalder.

  ‘Down where you dropped me that first time, near the river. I went down for a swim and it was just lying there.’

  Blake asked if there was anything else he found.

  ‘No, just that, lying on the ground like somebody dropped it. And I tried it and it worked.’

  ‘You should have handed it in, boy.’ Nalder could be a stern prick. For the first time Edward looked a bit guilty.

  ‘I thought someone had thrown it away.’

  Blake cut in and asked if anything else had been found in the caravan. Nalder confirmed nothing had been. Blake asked what other things had been stolen and Nalder ran off a list.

  ‘So where is the iron and the television and the watches and cufflinks and all the other loot? Up his ass?’

  Nalder’s reptilian look told him he had gone too far. ‘Maybe he hocked them.’

  ‘Maybe he’s telling the truth.’

  Nalder retorted, ‘Maybe he is but that doesn’t help any of us. Fact is, he is in possession of stolen property. I could lock him up for that alone.’

  ‘Or you could believe him.’

  ‘I don’t do anything, you know what happens? Some bugger decides to take the law into their own hands. It’s not safe for him here.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  Nalder sighed. ‘Best all round if he clears out. I won’t charge him, his record’s clean. If he stays there will be trouble.’

  ‘He didn’t steal anything. He’s not going.’

  Edward said in a clear voice, ‘No. He’s right. It’s the best thing. You got your boy coming back anyway, you don’t need me.’

  ‘You could work in the kitchen.’

  ‘That’s not me, boss. I don’t like living in a caravan and washing dishes. This is better.’

  ‘Too right it is. I’ve got his swag in the van. We’re settled?’

  Nalder scanned both of them but fixed on Blake. Blake looked back at Edward who gave a nod.

  Blake said, ‘Yeah, we’re settled.’

  Nalder turned on his heel, went to his van, brought out the swag, walked back and handed it to Edward. Without a word he then trudged back to the van, climbed in and drove off. Just like a sheriff in the Wild West.

  After they had settled up, they stood in the shadow of the Surf Shack sign.

  ‘Tell Doreen goodbye from me.’

  ‘Yes, Edward, I will. She’ll miss you.’

  ‘It’s for the best. Time I moved on but.’

  Another few seconds passed. Edward put out his hand and they shook.

  ‘It’s not fair,’ said Blake.

  Edward shrugged as if to say ‘it is what it is’. He went to move off.

  ‘Wait.’

  Blake slipped his watch off his wrist and put it on Edward’s.

  ‘I can’t take this.’

  ‘It’s mine to give. I want you to have it.’

  ‘No. I mean I can’t take it. I’ll get arrested for stealing it.’

  Blake was about to bite when he saw the smile breaking over Edward’s face. This time they clasped one another tight.

  ‘Thank you,’ Edward whispered and put the watch on his wrist.

  ‘Stay off the grog.’

  ‘I’ll try, boss.’

  Finally they separated. Edward started walking. Blake watched him all the way out of the carpark and down to the coast road and along, with that slight limp, leaving his life just the way he had entered it.

  Nalder turned off the road and drove down the track towards the river. He reckoned the radio must have fallen out when he’d got out to take a piss. Well, this would be the last trip. It had worked out well, the blackfella going. Sooner or later there would have been a problem with him and he didn’t want to lock up the poor bugger for something he knew he hadn’t done. He pulled into a quiet bend and reversed the van. This was where the river was deepest. Sooner or later some kid diving down would find it but it wouldn’t matter. The important thing was that they had suffered. Six of those bastards who’d voted against him either this time or the last. He opened up the back doors of the van, hauled out two kids bikes and tossed them in. Next a record player and a bunch of LPs. He was tempted to keep Andy Stewart but knew there could be no trace of anything stolen in his possession. In a town this small, coincidence was bound to happen and someone would find it one day during a barbecue or a church fete. An oil painting from that poser Lamont’s wall — looked like shit a kindy kid could have drawn — was next to go in the drink, followed by some tools out of Bentley’s shed and, last but not least, the Morgans’ vacuum cleaner. He watched it all sink, shut up the van, climbed into the driver seat and started up. Revenge was a dish best served cold; speaking of which, Edith had promised cold lamb for dinner. With a lager to wash it down, that would be just perfect.

  10. Death and Resurrection

  A sense of injustice regarding Edward’s treatment had been clawing at Blake but it fell away like cut fern when he saw Andy rush to the aquarium and begin pointing out the fish he thought he recognised. Unsurprisingly, he picked up on a couple of little missing zebra fish and a black molly which he had called Chubby after Chubby Checker, the only Negro other than heavyweight boxers that most Australians had heard of. Doreen had played along, explaining those fish had died of natural causes. It was the Friday after Edward had gone, four days earlier for Andy to be back than Blake had intended originally. So long as he kept an eye on Andy, he figured it wouldn’t do any harm. Also, if he was honest with himself, it meant he could continue to pump Andy about the night Valerie Stokes had been murdered. Perhaps by being back in the venue, his memory might be triggered quicker. For his part, Blake was still convinced that somewhere or other he had seen that shirt described by Andy but neither Duck, Panza nor any of the other staff recalled it, and definitely not Doreen, who had been acting a little off-key herself the last couple of days. According to Harvey, whom he’d spoken to the previous evening while making himself hamburgers, Crane had no memory of any guy in that shirt. The upshot of all this was that he couldn’t go to Nalder or anybody else and start throwing out theories about who really killed Valerie Stokes.

  ‘You k
now that man you mentioned in the shirt?’ he asked Andy as they were fixing the leg of a table that had gone slightly wobbly.

  ‘Yes, the crab shirt.’

  ‘That’s the one. Do you remember if you saw him before or after you saw Crane talking to her?’

  Andy hemmed and hawed but he just couldn’t remember.

  ‘That’s okay. Don’t worry about it.’

  Around two, they were both feeling hungry so he volunteered to get pies while Andy stayed and sorted the empties from last night. He thought he would buy Andy a pastry matchstick, which was the kid’s favourite. He joined the light traffic that was typical of the town, humming the beginnings of a new tune. It was as he passed Clarke’s Cars that he was zapped by the thunderbolt that made him almost run up the back of the slow-moving truck in front.

  He knew exactly where he had seen that shirt … hanging on the wall in the car yard’s little office building in a photo of Bob Hope, and the wearer: Winston Clarke.

  He U-turned and drove up into the lot, parking by the office. He had to satisfy himself there was no mistake, that it wasn’t some flight of fancy.

  The photo had not been shifted. The shirt was plain for all to see, crabs and lobsters, the kind of Hawaiian shirt you weren’t going to find a double of this side of the Pacific.

  ‘Hello, Blake.’ Clarke emerged through a door in the little office behind the reception desk, followed Blake’s eye-line. ‘Yep, that’s right, me and Bob Hope. I never sold him a car, unfortunately, but I did play a round of golf. You thinking of trading in that ute of yours?’

  Clarke dabbed his mouth with a handkerchief. Blake realised it must have been a one-way mirror set in the wall so Clarke could eat lunch without missing a customer.

  ‘Actually I have. Or not so much trading-in, I still need the ute, but I thought I’d just test the water on something else.’

  ‘Women don’t like utes, right?’ He winked knowingly. ‘So what are you looking at? New? Second-hand?’

  ‘I think it would have to be second-hand.’

  ‘Got a terrific FB that has only got two thousand six hundred on the clock. Fellow had a heart attack, wife won’t let him drive.’

  Blake said he’d take a look. Clarke led him out to the lot.

  Blake said casually, ‘I think I saw you at my bar the other week. Didn’t get a chance to buy you a drink.’

  Clarke frowned. ‘Haven’t made it to your bar yet. Should have, but Friday I’m normally at the golf club, and the weekend with my boy here, we’ve been doing dad-and-son shit — out in the bush, up to the Heads last weekend.’

  They stopped at a two-tone FB Holden sedan.

  Blake cooed appreciatively, then said, ‘I’m sure it was you. It was the Thursday of your kid’s party. I thought you must have got the hell out of there.’

  ‘And leave that lot? No, must have been someone else. I will drop in though, promise. We could have a celebratory drink when you buy this baby.’

  He let Clarke take him on the tour, rubbed his chin and shook his head at the price. Clarke knocked off the obligatory ten percent.

  ‘I’d love to but … it’s out of my range.’

  ‘I’ve got some others. Nice little Zephyr.’

  Blake begged off, said he had to see a friend in hospital but he was glad he’d put out the feelers. Clarke said he was more than happy to let him test-drive any of his cars any time.

  Leftwich passed them with a spring in his step, and a couple trailing behind.

  ‘Showing them the FB,’ he grinned.

  ‘It won’t last,’ Clarke said knowingly to Blake. They walked back to the office.

  ‘Your boy is still here?’

  ‘Got him till the end of the month. And if his mates wreck my car again, it’s coming out of his pocket money. Look at that.’ It was only then that Blake realised he’d parked next to the Bel Air. ‘Good as new.’ Clarke ran his fingers across the gleaming chrome bumper. ‘You ever need some body work done, give me a hoy.’

  Blake drove without thinking, found himself down at the point where Crane’s little hut had stood. It seemed a century ago. The white gums were like bones poking from a graveyard towards a grey heaven. He’d walked beneath a thousand of these skies in Philly but there you’d be wearing coats and gloves. Nothing matched here. You had a grey sky overhead but the air was as humid as a subway car in summer. He wanted to think it all through, see if he could piece how Clarke did it. The why he might never figure out. Trawl back: it’s the night of the kid’s birthday. Clarke has paid for the grog. Maybe he gets sick of the youngsters, thinks he’ll head out, trawl town for a woman. Perhaps he heads to the Surf Shack because that’s on his mind, he knows it’s open and has never been there. In the car lot he meets Val Stokes and puts a proposition to her. Or he already knows her from her hooker days. Maybe the whole time from Sunday to Thursday she was at Clarke’s house, got out because the kid was coming home? Either way, Clarke drives to the Ocean View Motel and it all goes screwy and he butchers her. Whoever did it had to be covered in blood. If he was naked he could have showered after, then puts his clothes back on, driven home like nothing had happened. The kids would be drunk as skunks, they likely wouldn’t even notice he’d gone.

  There was no time to waste. Blake was playing tonight but Clarke had said that every Friday he went to the golf club. The boy, Thomas, was still staying at the house but if he was anything like every other teenager he knew, there was a big chance he would be out with his pals, surfing or drinking on the sly. The house would likely not be locked. He could poke around.

  Blake took the road that ran directly through the hinterland onto Belvedere. His brain was assembling the pieces with the methodical manner in which his hands assembled a gun: Valerie Stokes had been staying somewhere in the region, why not Clarke’s? It made sense she would have left before the party. Clarke arranges to meet up with her at the Ocean View. Snap. He leaves the party. Something bad goes down at the motel. Snap. Clarke kills her, gets the hell out of there but in his haste clips the trash can. Snap. He would have been covered in blood, he would have to get rid of his clothes, shoes. He gets back home, acts as if nothing happened. If the kid knew about Stokes being there, he tells him to say nothing but probably the kid never even met Stokes.

  It took Blake forty minutes to reach the Clarke driveway. He parked off Belvedere on a track in thick scrub and scuttled through bush parallel to the driveway until he reached the back of the house. The sun was drifting lower, the air sticky as blood.

  Damn. The kid’s car was parked on the back lawn. He thought about turning back but only for an instant. He broke cover and moved swiftly across the lawn, and up the stairs to the back door. It was open, just the flywire between the landing and the interior. He strained his ears for a sound. If Tom Clarke came his way now he could still run but once inside there was no way to explain his presence. He waited for close on three minutes. Counting time in his head was just one skill he’d developed in his days as an assassin. Moving silently was another. He opened the door and slid inside the dark kitchen where he had been the day he brought over the kegs. On the table was an empty beer bottle. He moved to the door that led into a passageway, longer to his left than right. Dead ahead was the lounge room. He edged forward, saw Thomas Clarke’s feet poking over the end of the sofa. He was fast asleep, a comic across his chest, an empty beer glass on the floor. Blake edged to the right, came to a laundry on the left. Opposite was a bare brick room, concrete floor, offering the hot-water system with wood cut and stacked at the ready. A golf bag leant against some meccano-like steel shelving where a couple of cricket bats and a set of stumps had been placed flat. The hallway dead-ended in a toilet. Blake turned back down the hallway and snuck back past the lounge room. Beyond it, on the same side, was a bedroom, or at least he imagined that’s what was there under the sheets and dumped clothes and shoes. Odds-on it was the kid’s. The room next to it was clearly Clarke’s bedroom, large with windows looking out over rolling hills. O
ne wall was built-in wardrobes and cupboards. Noiselessly he pulled open the wardrobe doors, saw an array of shirts both business and recreational, jackets, slacks, all very neat and ordered.

  But no Hawaiian shirt with lobsters and crabs.

  He searched again to be sure. It wasn’t there. He rifled drawers in the wardrobe and bedside table looking for anything of interest, found an electric razor, pens, rubber bands, coins, nothing else of import. Opposite Clarke’s bedroom on the other side of the hallway was the bathroom, recently used, the showerhead, green with mould, offering a slow drip. He checked the shelves for any sign of female occupation but there was none. Turning out of the bathroom, he looked left down the shadowy hallway which dead-ended. He was about to turn back when he saw something on the floor, some vague shape. Moving closer, he saw it was a small padlock attached to a recessed handle. He cursed himself for coming so ill-prepared. He could pick this lock with a paperclip. An idea came to him. He eased back up the hallway. The kid was still asleep in the lounge room. Blake moved into the room with the boiler and scanned the shelves of tools, found what he was after: fuse wire.

  It took him about three minutes to pick the simple little lock. The trapdoor creaked when it lifted on hinges and revealed an internal staircase heading to some kind of basement. A string hung off to the right to activate a light. He waited for any sound to indicate the kid had stirred. Satisfied the kid hadn’t moved, he pulled the string. A lowwatt globe lit up. He started down the narrow concrete steps, pulling the trapdoor after him. Now he was enveloped by cool and the smell of rock, understandable since the wall to his right was the original rock wall of the hill, smoothed in patches by concrete. The dull bulb had illuminated a basement, at least twelve feet high, concrete floor. The other three walls were brick. Apart from some vents in the rear wall, the room was airless and musty. This looked like another storage room. Blake made out the tennis nets bundled in a corner, old tins of paint, a lawnmower; but there was a small sofa in the forties chintz style and stacked beside it 78 records. On a paint-stained table facing the sofa was an old gramophone and then … up against the wall — what was that? It looked like …