Have His Carcase

7

Have His Carcase

    Mike made it back to the little group of letterboxes numbered 203 A, B and C Pohutukawa Bay Road around seven that evening. He’d let the yawning Dave Short go home, he was obviously going to be no use at all until he got some sleep. Instead he was accompanied by a very raw D.C. from town. Mike didn’t bother to make this young fellow feel at ease.

    “Down here?” the D.C. said, goggling at the track along the top of the cliff.

    “Yeah. Young Jablonski’s squatting in the first of these bloody little holiday homes, or whatever the fuck they are.”

    The young man didn’t react and Mike sighed and said clearly: “These are the so-called chalets that Carrano’s been at loggerheads with the County Council over, geddit? He wants to put a road in and finish the development—build a lot more of the ruddy things—but so far the Council’s been knocking him back.” He paused. “Led by Don Banks,” he said tiredly.

    “Eh? Aw—yeah, I geddit.”

    “The car can stay here,” said Mike, getting out.

    “Too right!” the young man agreed with feeling, following suit.

    It was a lovely evening but Mike didn’t remark on it. They began to stroll the twenty yards or so to what was presumably 203A and the D.C. said dubiously: “Couldn’t he just put a drive in, though?”

    “Don’t ask me, I’m not that up on Puriri County Council regs. Think they’ve got a limit on the number of residences you can have off the one drive or something. Which reminds me: you can get over to the Council offices first thing tomorrow and find out exactly what the regs are: we might as well know just how much of a fly in Carrano’s ointment Don Banks actually was, as opposed to how much he thought he was.”

    “Uh—yeah. Righto,” he said, both blank and glum.

    There was a short pause.

    “They had that fight last week in the Council meeting,” he said cautiously.

    “Ya don’t say.”

    The young man flushed and was silent.

    Young Jablonski wasn’t in. This time there was no note on the door. Mike sighed.

    “Do ya reckon he could of done it?” ventured the D.C.

    Mike sighed again. “On the evidence so far, anyone could have done it. Young Jablonski had some sort of motive, if all this folderol about his father’s gambling debts is true.”

    “Um—yeah.”

    “You were there, Tony, weren’t you listening?” said Mike rather loudly.

    “Um—yeah, I was, only—”

    “Carrano’s narrative seemed to me quite remarkably clear. If sparse,” said Mike in a nasty voice.

    “Yeah, but he reckons he paid off that loan for the old bloke!”

    Mike winced.

    “Um—oh, I geddit, ya mean Ole Man Jablonski coulda got into debt again.”

    “Yeah,” said Mike on a sigh.

    The D.C. looked thoughtful.

    “Come on,” said Mike resignedly, “we’ll see if Jablonski’s down the track at Polly Mitchell’s.”

    “Yeah. Um, if she was in on that trip to Tazzie, maybe she could tell us a bit more!”

    “Mm. Well, whatever she says is bound to be more illuminating than Carrano’s carefully edited version of the facts,” said Mike, very dry.

    “Yeah,” agreed Tony gratefully. “Boy, isn’t he—” He broke off.

    “Isn’t he what?”

    Gulping, the young man replied: “I dunno, really, sir. I mean— Crikey, I wouldn’t like to work for him!”

    “No. Reminds me of the Chief Super, in a way,” said Mike thoughtfully. Tony gulped, but nodded. “And you can drop the flaming ‘sir’ stuff, you’re not in the uniformed branch now, ya know,” he added heavily.

   “No. All right, Mike,” he said humbly.

    Mike swallowed a sigh, and strode on.

    “Crikey,” said Tony numbly outside Polly’s little house.

    The crikey was presumably provoked not by the sight of several cars parked in the rutted turning circle, or by the fact that this little wooden cottage actually had a picket fence and neat little front garden, the only two points which visibly distinguished it from 203A, but by the noise. Reasonably loud, but Mike had heard a lot louder. No, it was its quality rather than its volume.

    “Rod Jablonski’s probably here, sounds like a Mittel-European rave-up,” he said on a grim note.

    “Um—yeah.”

    Mike strode up onto the verandah. He didn’t have to bash on the door—which was open, in any case—because as he got there a tall, handsome blond man in perhaps his early forties wandered up the little passage. This man wasn’t remarkable in himself, but what he was wearing was worthy of note: a bright floral cotton sarong, folded tightly round his slim hips. Bright blues, pinks, yellows and greens on a white background. He said something incomprehensible and waved a champagne bottle hospitably at them.

    Tony looked helplessly at Mike.

    “Is Polly in?” said Mike rather loudly.

    The type shrugged elaborately, waved the bottle and said something in what might have been French but if so wasn’t the variety Mike had learnt at school. The two policemen were beginning to feel this could go on for some time but at this moment another man appeared in the passage: a short, solid, dark fellow, but not remarkable in himself. However, he was also wearing a cotton sarong. His was red and yellow. He said something incomprehensible to the blond man, who replied with a shrug and a short speech, accompanying it with a very vague wave of the hand that wasn’t holding the bottle.

    At this the dark man, looking very apologetic, almost bowed to the two detectives and said: “Ach, I am so very sorry: our dear Leo iss very full off booze, so he hass relapsed into the language off his childhood. You must forgive him.”

    “Languages, plural,” said the blond man in perfect unaccented English.

    “Please, come in: Polly vill be very glad to see you,” said the dark man with a nice smile, completely ignoring this interpolation.

    “I doubt that: we haven’t come for the rave-up,” said Mike coldly. “Would you tell her that Mike Collingwood would like a word, please?”

    “But come in, come in, you are most velcome!” he said urgently, smiling and nodding. The two policemen now realised that he was at least as drunk as the other man.

    Tony looked helplessly at his superior but Mike merely said in a grim voice: “All right; thanks.”

    They came in, and the dark fellow ushered them into the room immediately to the right of the front door.

    Polly was sitting on a cane sofa looking very calm. As she was prone to look very calm when she was drunk Mike wasn’t too sure that she wasn’t. She was wearing a long, floating white thing from under which you got the glow of a bright yellow bikini. Mike could almost feel Tony’s eyes on stalks. The glossy brown curls were pinned up high—and very untidily—in a big yellow clip, and she had a large pink hibiscus behind one ear.

    On the floor at her feet sat Rod Jablonski, busily buttering bread. He was wearing denim shorts. At the small kauri dining table at the far end of the room Roger Browne was inexpertly carving a cold chicken. Browne was wearing grey cotton shorts and a very ordinary pale blue shirt and this was, frankly, a source of relief to Mike Collingwood.

    Beside Polly on the sofa was a plump, white-haired, smiling woman in a floral summer dress, and next to her in a cane armchair a fair-haired fellow in perhaps his late thirties. He was wearing jeans and a tee-shirt. Mike would have overlooked the fact that the tee-shirt said something about “München” but for the fact that the three of them were bellowing in German. They had to bellow, the Mittel-European music was very loud. It sounded like… zithers? God knew what, but zithers came close. Massed zithers. Goddawful.

    Mike opened his mouth but at that moment Polly looked round and saw him. Her face immediately took on a very guarded expression and he realised that she was more or less sober. She got up and came over to them, smiling uncertainly.

    “I see I’ve come at an awkward moment,” he said.

    “WHAT?” she shouted.

    “I said— Look, can’t you turn that down?” he cried.

    “No, Cousin Lotte’s a bit DEAF!” shouted Polly.

    As far as he knew she didn’t have a Cousin Lotte. He grabbed her arm and pulled her down to the kitchen. There the noise was somewhat less, but there there was also a solid-looking, youngish blonde woman, who said to Polly in an even stronger German accent than that of the dark fellow: “I think ve make too much coleslaw, ja?”

    “Never mind, Gretchen, Rod can take some home with him, I don’t think he does much cooking,” replied Polly placidly.

    “Vhy should he be favoured, just because he’s a man?” she returned, though without animus.

    “Don’t be silly, I’m not favouring him because he’s a man, I’m favouring him because he’s a young and shatteringly beautiful man!” replied Polly with a gurgle.

    “Figures,” agreed Mike coldly.

    “Ja, absolutely. Though I am glad to see that all this murder business hass not upset her to the point vhere she no longer functions as normal!” she said with a wink at Mike, though with a perfectly straight face. “One good thing, though, the shtupid police haff left her alone today. Do you eat coleslaw?”

    Mike opened his mouth but Polly said: “Yes, he likes it. –You’ll love Gretchen’s, she does something secret and wonderful to it, I’ve never tasted anything like it,” she assured Mike. “Do you like coleslaw?” she added to the young D.C., smiling at him.

    Naturally he went red to the roots of his neat brown hair and stuttered: “Um— Yeah—um—” With a helpless look at Mike.

    “Good; if there’s some left over, you may share it vith Rod—though you are not so beautiful ass he,” said the German woman, mercifully going out, taking the bowl of coleslaw with her.

    “Polly, we haven’t come for TEA!” said Mike, rather more loudly than he’d meant to.

    “You’re very welcome to say, there’s stacks. There’s another chook and a cold duck in the fridge, Cousin Lotte brought it.”

    Mike passed a hand over his neat brown hair and said: “Look, who the Christ is this Cousin Lotte? I never knew you had a Cousin Lotte!” –He was aware that Tony’s jaw by this time had just about hit the lino, but he ignored it.

    “She’s Rod’s cousin. Well, she must be a second cousin or something, she’s a relation of his father’s. But she said to call her Cousin Lotte, all the young people do!” Polly twinkled at him. “She’s part Austrian and part Polish but she grew up in Austria.”

    “Dare I ask why she’s here?”

    “She came to see Rod, because she was worried about him up here by himself after the murder.”

    Mike’s jaw went a bit saggy at this: the old lady must be seventy if she was a day.

    “She’s a bit vague. And pretty arthritic, so it was a really huge thing for her to come on the bus all the way up here from Brown’s Bay.”

    “What bus?” replied Mike on an acid note.

    “Well, that’s it: she had to get a bus down to Taka’, and then another bus up to Puriri, and then get a taxi.”

    “That explains why the two of them are at your place getting rolling drunk.”

    “Rod was just coming down to my place when she arrived, so he brought her along. She’s a lovely old thing,” said Polly, smiling at him.

    “Yeah. Who are the two ponces in the skirts?”

    “The tall, fair one’s Leo Schmidt. He’s a colleague, he’s in the French Department.”

    “That didn’t sound like French he was spouting at the front door.”

    “It might have been Polish,” replied Polly with extreme placidity.

    Mike took a deep breath.

    “He came up to see if I was all right—you know, with the murder and everything.”

    “That explains the skirt,” he agreed.

    Suddenly Tony said hoarsely: “Who’s the other one?”

    Polly smiled at him. “In the sarong?”

    He nodded, going red to the roots of his hair and smiling back helplessly. –Mike experienced a definite itch in his big toe at this point.

    “They call him Putzi, but his real name’s Friedrich. He’s a friend of the other man, the one that was talking to Cousin Lotte when you came in.” Mike opened his mouth angrily but she went on: “He’s Gretchen’s brother, Gerhard. That was Gretchen, the lady that was in here just now. She’s a colleague of mine from work. Gerhard and Putzi are out here on holiday. They’ve been for a drive round Puriri County and Gretchen just stopped off to see if I was okay.”

    “And to feed young Jablonski on coleslaw, apparently,” added Mike drily.

    “More or less,” agreed Polly sunnily. “Are you going to curdle our stomachs by giving us the third degree?”

    Mike sighed. “It can wait, I suppose.”

    “Gretchen and her lot won’t stay long, they’re making an early start for Rotorua in the morning. And Rod’s going to drive Cousin Lotte home straight after tea, it’s been a big day for her, and she usually goes to bed around nine.”

    “That leaves the blond type in the skirt, and Browne, by my count. Or are you expecting Carrano as well?”

    “No,” she said, going pink. “Um, it’s beyond human capacity to make Leo do anything he doesn’t want to, so if he wants to stay, he will. Only I should think he’d be awfully bored if you start doing your third degree stuff, so he’ll probably go.”

    Mike was himself looking very bored. He drawled: “I’ll guarantee to get rid of him, if ya like.”

    “No, boredom oughta do it.”

    Shrugging, Mike replied: “We’ll be back around half-past eight. And just mind you’re sober.”

    “I’ve only had one glass of champagne,” she said on a mournful note.

    “Good, keep it that way. –Come on, Tony,” he said giving him a shove in the general direction of the back door.

    “Are you sure you don’t want to stay for tea?” asked Polly.

    “No!”

    “Bye-bye, then. See you later,” she said, smiling at them.

    “Just don’t—say—anything,” warned Mike, as they made their way round the side of the house.

    “Um, I was only gonna say were they all foreigners, then?” he said meekly.

    Mike opened the little wicket gate. “Poles, Austrians, Germans, you name it.”

    “Crikey.”

    They were halfway back to the road before Tony asked: “Was that the lady that teaches at the varsity, then? The one that’s Jake Carrano’s girlfriend?”

    “No, it was Minnie Mouse,” said Mike through his teeth.

    As might have been expected, Tony Harrod laughed at this. Give him a few more years in the job and he might even turn out as bright as Dave Short.

    Mike got back around a quarter to nine. The front door was still open but there was no noise of massed zithers. He went straight in. Polly was reading a book on the sofa with her feet up—still in the white gauze thing—and Browne was sitting in one of the cane armchairs, reading a newspaper. It looked like one of those flimsy Pommy newspapers that types like him got airmail and Mike looked at it with disfavour.

    “Hullo, Mike,” she said, putting the book down and smiling. –Browne remained immersed in the newspaper.

    “Any Poles, Germans or Austrians in the woodwork?’

    “No, they’ve all gone.”

    Mike sat down in the other cane armchair. “You expecting Jablonski back?”

    “No; did you want to talk to him?”

    “Not just yet,” replied Mike on a grim note.

    “Where’s your off-sider?” she asked, looking at the doorway as if expecting stray D.C.s to pop up like jack-in-a-boxes any minute.

    “The clone,” said Browne suddenly, from inside his paper.

    Polly’s lips twitched. “It’s that neat hair, mainly, Mike, I think. Short and neat. And brown.”

    The Pom lowered his paper slightly and said over it: “Not to mention the white shirt, discreet navy tie, and grey slacks.”

    Polly gave a giggle. “Yes!”

    Mike was aware that the young tit modelled his style on his but he hadn’t realised it would be immediately apparent to outsiders. “You can drop that,” he said shortly, reddening. “And put that paper down, Browne, I want you in on this.”

    Polly began uncertainly: “I’ve told you what little I know. I could give you my impressions of Don Banks, but they’re the same as everyone else’s.”

    “I don’t want your impressions of Banks, I want—” He hesitated.

    “Your impressions of Rod, apparently,” drawled Browne.

    “What?” she cried, flushing indignantly.

    Mike got his little cassette recorder out of his pocket and put it on the coffee table. “More or less. I need to know more about the whole set-up with old Mr Jablonski, and his gambling debts, and so on.”

    “‘Count’ Jablonski,” murmured Browne on an odd note.

    “All right: Count Jablonski or whatever he calls himself.”

    “Jerzy, his name is,” murmured Polly.

    She’d pronounced it the way Rod had told him it was pronounced. So Mike said, with some relief that the little sod hadn’t been taking the Mick: “Yeah. Him.”

    “Go on,” said Browne in a bored voice. “Old Ron Carewe’s little dash to Tazzie to the casino, earlier in the year.”

    “It’ll never become as popular as ‘a bolt to Brizzie’,” she said sadly.

    They sniggered.

    “You can cut that right out. Who went? Carrano, Old Man Carewe—and his wife, I presume? Right; that it, besides you, Polly?”

    “Um, no, Ken Armitage and Magda von Trotte. And Leo,” said Polly on a glum note.

    “Self-invited,” explained Browne.

     Mike gave him an evil look. “You were there, were you?”

    “No, but I heard about it afterwards. On the night in question the old Carewes had given the high life away—gone to bed early—but the rest of them were apparently game to chuck their money away.”

    “If you weren’t there, shut up,” replied Mike evilly.

    Browne gave him a very dry look, but shut up.

    “Go on, Polly, what happened?” said Mike grimly.

    “Um, well, I didn’t chuck my money away, Jake wouldn’t let me,” she admitted.

    Possibly that made one of them within spitting distance of Carrano’s bloody patio pool that wasn’t in debt to Don Banks, then. Mike replied in a hard voice: “Just stick to the facts, thanks.”

    “That was a fact. Um… Somebody said there was a high rollers’ table out the back, so of course the idiots wanted to play at it. It wasn’t really out the back, at all, it was only another room. –It’s all in the most appalling garish taste, they must have modelled it on Las Vegas! Las Vegas mixed with Eighties Ugly!” she said eagerly.

    “Facts,” replied Mike.

    “Yes. Sorry. It was baccarat. A la James Bond. Jake reckoned he could count the cards or something but that didn’t stop him losing thousands.”

    “How many thousands?” said Mike in spite of himself. He did know the bloody man would have to lose millions before he even looked like going broke, and that was only his personal fortune.

    “I forget. Only he went on playing, and won. Fifty thousand, that evening.”

    Mike swallowed, in spite of himself.

    “Yes; disgusting isn’t it?” said Polly detachedly. “I said if I’d had a win like that I’d give it to Corso or Oxfam so he said he wasn’t a varsity leftie and he’d like to see it, and wrote me out a cheque with the name blank and said it was all mine and he’d like to see me put my money where my mouth was.”

    “She made it out to Corso,” said Browne with a smile. “One gathered he choked.”

    “Yes. Ken thought it was a scream,” said Polly placidly. “He told it all over town when we got back.”

    The reason for that very dry look of Browne’s was now becoming clear to Mike. “I can ask Carrano if you don’t want to tell me, Polly,” he warned.

    “You’ll get even less out of him,” noted Browne.

    “Mm. He said charity begins at home,” admitted Polly, “but that doesn’t mean he’ll want to tell you about it. –I’m telling it!” she said quickly as Mike frowned and opened his mouth.

    Possibly she was telling it. But he let her get on with it. Once Browne had stuck his oar in several times, presumably with the Ken Armitage version, it did seem reasonably clear.

    “I get it, old Jablonski lost the lot,” Mike concluded. “To Carrano?”

    “Er, no. Doesn’t one lose to the casino?” said Browne in a puzzled voice.

    Mike heard Polly swallow. “Chemin de fer style, was it, Polly?”

    “Mm,” she agreed in strangled tones.

    “Right. Baccarat, Browne. As in Casino Royale,” he said heavily.

    “He doesn’t read that sort of book,” murmured Polly.

    “Well, no, actually,” the Pommy tit agreed, looking smug.

    Mike sighed. “The casino takes its percentage, but one of the players holds the bank. You lose to the bank.”

    “Help, did he?” Browne asked Polly.

    “No, you idiot! Jake wouldn’t even go banco while the old coot was playing.”

    “Greek,” warned Mike laconically.

    “Well, yes!” said the Pom with a silly snigger.

    Polly opened her mouth but Mike said loudly: “Do not give him a lesson in the rules of baccarat!”

    “He wouldn’t retain it, anyway, he’s even worse at cards then me,” she said calmly.—Browne looked smug again, evidently to him this was another compliment, Jesus!—“Um, we just watched at first. Well, Jake did play at one point when Count Jablonski had dropped out; that was when he lost. To the fat man with the red face; he was an American, wouldn’t you think they wouldn’t bother to gamble in Hobart when they’ve got all those casinos of their own? But I think he was there for the trout fishing, I suppose this was just a little—”

    “Polly!”

    “Side trip,” she said with a glare. “He said my dress was real pretty and where did I get it because he’d like to get his wife a pretty—”

    “Will you stop maundering!”

    Polly stuck her chin out. “I thought it was very sweet of him.”

    Quickly Browne put in: “Ken said the old man lost heavily to a smooth-faced Jap—er, Japanese. –It makes more sense, now that you’ve told me about the players holding the—”

    “Yes! Jesus! –Okay, how much exactly did he lose, Polly?”

    “I don’t know exactly,” she said with a sigh. “But I do know he was cleaned out. And Leo was right, it wasn’t just spite, for once: he had mortgaged his house.”

    “The banks must be mad,” croaked Mike. “Has he got any income?”

    “No, he’s a pensioner. But it wasn’t the banks. Well, it was a Banks.”

    Browne cleared his throat. “That isn’t funny, Polly.”

    “No. Sorry,” she said to Mike. “It just came out.”

    “Are you telling me Don Banks lent the old coot money on that dump of his in Brown’s Bay?”

    She nodded unhappily.

    “Er—three hundred thousand dollars was the sum Ken mentioned,” said Browne cautiously.

    “Eh?”

    “He’s got it wrong,” said Polly with a sigh.

    Fancy that. Unfortunately the Pom was merely looking smug, yet again. “Then put him right, wouldja?”

    “It was a hundred thousand. I know the house is a wreck—though it’s basically a lovely shape, one of those really old-fashioned bungalows with the heavy architraves and low-pitched gable—I’m telling you! It could be worth a lot if it was done up. But the land’s worth a fair bit: property prices have shot up in Brown’s Bay recently, and Castor Bay’s already—”

    “We are NOT talking about Castor Bay!”

    “Gretchen looked at some houses there, they were really nice, but she can’t possibly afford that area. Mind you, her family’s quite well off, but she’s too proud to accept a loan from her father. It doesn’t seem to have occurred to her that she’s hurting his feelings by not accepting: aren’t people odd?”

    Browne coughed. “Yes. Never mind all that, Polly. What she’s avoiding telling you, Collingwood, is that Jake bought up the mortgage, or took it over—I’m not sure of the precise terminology, and I have to say it all sounded incredibly Dickensian to me—er, sorry. Anyway, he paid Banks off. I think that was where the three hundred thousand came into it.”

    “Um, yes,” agreed Polly. “I have to admit it was very generous of him, especially after what the horrid old man said to him at the baccarat table—I know it was in Polish but Leo very kindly translated for us later, just in case we hadn’t guessed how horrid it really was—but the thing is, he’s so rich that three hundred thousand doesn’t really mean very much to him. –And don’t dare to say it would have been cheaper to buy the whole casino!” she added fiercely as the misguided Roger opened his mouth.

    Mike had to clear his throat. “Didja? Right,” he said as the type nodded, smirking. “Think it belongs to the Tasmanian state government, actually, think that’s the point of it.”

    “Yes,” agreed Polly. “He does know that, Mike, Ken explained it to him. Anyway, that was it: three hundred thousand for Don Banks’s mortgage and he paid off his other debts. Well, the old Count wouldn’t let on what they were, Esmé told him. Not that she was grateful, she seems to have screamed out something about filthy lucre, but she accepted it, all right. And before you start, Jake only told me about it because I was very worried about the poor old man!” She glared at him.

    “Right: modest little violet’s his middle name.”

    The Pom gave a strangled cough and Polly glared.

    Mike rubbed his straight nose. “So Don Banks chiselled three times what that dump’s worth out of Carrano, eh?”

    “Apparently, yes,” agreed Roger. “The locals do seem agreed he was the complete Scrooge. Well—Dickensian!” he said with a little laugh.

    Mike didn’t get much time for reading, but he rather liked Dickens. You got a solid read out of him, and he was good on all those slimy, horrible characters—that Pecksniff, for example. Don Banks sounded to him like a bit of a Pecksniff, actually, rather than a Scrooge. He didn’t say so in front of Roger Browne, though.

    Roger pulled his ear, looking dubious. “Er—you may wonder why Carrano didn’t save himself a lot of money and simply give a hundred thousand to old Jablonski, so that he could pay Banks off—”

    “He’s not an idiot,” said Polly before Mike could reply.

    “No, that’d be asking to see his hundred thou’ go the way of the lot the old coot lost in Hobart,” agreed Mike.

    “No, actually I meant you, not Jake,” she said, smiling at him. “But that’s it, of course.”

    Drily Mike replied: “Thanks for the compliment. Any idea what happened when young Rod found out Carrano had chucked all this dough in his old man’s direction?”

    “Technically he didn’t!” retorted Polly crossly, flushing brightly.

    “Come off it.” The Pom had also gone very red, so he concentrated on him instead of prising it out of her—there was always the off-chance she might bawl, she wasn’t that unlike her mum, and Mike had seen Mrs Mitchell bawl her eyes out over a flaming dead magpie. He’d also seen her wring a chook’s neck without a second thought, mind you.

    Browne wriggled, but came clean. Apparently Schmidt the Snake had needled the poor kid in their blasted staffroom about the old joker’s debt to Carrano. Resulting in a lot of shouting and an eventual exit from the room trying not to bawl in front of Polly, the Pom and the aforesaid snake. Mike’s money would have been on Polly to offer words of consolation, but no: Browne had actually gone along to speak to the kid himself.

    In the interval Polly and Schmidt had apparently had a barney but Mike didn’t ask for details. Actually he didn’t need ’em: it would’ve been just like that time him and Bob Mitchell—before they’d reached the age of discretion, as it were—had been teasing little Melia Dawson. Well, teasing wasn’t quite the word; they’d been playing cowboys and Indians and him and Bob were the Indians and Melia was the captive cowboy. –At the time no-one had been struck by the oddness of it all, but now, Mike was, forcibly: for one thing the Dawsons were Maoris, and wouldn’t you have thought a re-enactment of the Maori Wars would have been more appropriate? Mike had never meet a kid, brown or white, who’d played at storming a pa. Robin Hood—yes. Cowboys and Indians—too right. And with the later generations, Star Wars and all that crap. Pretty bloody odd, yeah. Anyway, him and Bob had tied Melia up to one of the macrocarpas up the back of the cow paddock and she was bawling her head off—musta been about… eight? Something like that. Mrs Mitchell had heard the roars and come steaming up the paddock and laid into the pair of them, but good. With that wooden spoon of hers, she’d been making jam…

    He wouldn’t have minded being a fly on the wall after Browne had left that staffroom of theirs, he thought, swallowing a smile.

    Turned out young Rod had been under the mistaken impression that Carrano had given his Dad a loan on the house in the first instance.

    “So who gave Rod the idea that it was Carrano that had put the screws on his old man? The old joker?”

    Roger eyed Polly sideways. “Er—no. It was Mrs Jablonski.”

    “Of course it was!” she said impatiently. “Who else’d be that spiteful? Well—her or Leo.”

    “Mm. I hadn’t met her at that stage, Mike,” he explained, “but now… It could have been genuine muddle, but I’d be inclined to vote for deliberate spite—yes.”

    Mike winced. “Yeah. –Can’t have been much fun for the kid, growing up with that for a ma.”

    “No,” he agreed, “though I think he’s the type…” Mike was bracing himself for a dose of psychological insight but he continued: “The type who puts a lot of energy into the physical side of his life: sports, and so on; I believe he’s an excellent tennis player.”

    Mike sniffed. “She’d’ve been coaching him devotedly throughout his teens, no doubt!”

    “Hah, hah,” agreed Polly sourly.

    “I’m sorry,” said Roger weakly. “I think there’s a reference or fourteen here that I’m missing.”

    “The beauteous Esmé,” explained Mike with a grimace, since Polly didn’t seem to be about to speak up, “was one of the country’s top women seeds in her day.”

    “Ranks in tennis, Rog,” said Polly mildly.

    Mike had to swallow, but Browne just nodded. “Um, yes,” he agreed feebly. “Tennis. Think she just missed out on… Dunno. Commonwealth Games? Wimbledon finals? Well before my time, but that’s what they tell me.”

    The bloody sod looked at him poker-face and said: “What a pity that Don Banks wasn’t bludgeoned to death with an old Slazenger, then, isn’t it?”

    “Hah, hah!” crowed Polly, dissolving in hysterical giggles.

    “Look, just go and make us a cuppa,” said Mike heavily, when she’d managed to calm down and blow her nose.

    “Okay. Want one, Rog? Okey-doke, then,” she said, going.

    Mike sagged limply in his cane armchair—the things weren’t deep enough, but he wasn’t the only one perching here like a grasshopper on a pinhead.

    “It isn’t merely the height off the floor, it’s the depth of the seats,” said the Pom calmly.

    “Ta for that, Browne.”

    “She finds them very comfortable,” he replied with a little smile.

    Mike looked at the smile with intense irritation and said: “It’s also a pity that Banks wasn't shot through the head from a distance of five hundred yards with a sporting rifle.” The Pom, he was glad to see, was looking totally blank, so he explained kindly: “Old Jablonski was in the Commonwealth Games. Rifle shoot. Bronze medallist.”

    “Good God. Dead-Eye Dick, eh?”

    “Yeah. Well, these days he probably couldn’t hit a haystack from five feet: he’s more like Dead-Drunk Dick.”

    “It’s very sad,” said Polly from the doorway,

    Mike jumped slightly. “I dare say.”

    “Is lemon all right? There’s only a drop of milk left and I’d better save it for Grey’s breakfast.”

    They agreed lemon was all right, and she went back to the kitchen, noting: “It is very sad. Poor old man.”

    “I haven’t met him,” said Roger cautiously to Collingwood’s dead silence.

    “Eh? Oh—old Jablonski? Do me a favour and don’t quote me, will ya? He struck me as an élitist old bastard, quite as unpleasant in his way as his wife is. Doesn’t suffer fools gladly—and I admit Dave Short isn’t the brightest of the bright, but—”

    “Mm,” said Roger, biting his lip a little but looking at him with considerable sympathy.

    Mike sighed and passed his hand over his face. “I’ve interviewed some really unpleasant types in my time: some of them’d snuff you for the change in your pockets, no exaggeration, and laugh about it afterwards—and ya needn’t mention that to her, either—but they were mostly too thick to grasp how sickeningly subhuman, or possibly I mean inhumane, or both, they were. Old Man Jablonski’s bloody bright—be where the son gets it from, I dare say—and the sort that takes a nasty delight in exercising his brains at the expense of the rest of the population.”

    Somewhat to his surprise Roger returned calmly: “Yes. There were several like that at my college.”

    “Um, students or staff?” asked Mike cautiously.

    “Dons. –Staff. The Warden was a very decent fellow, though.”

    “I’d’ve taken that fellowship,” said Polly from the doorway.

    The Pom got up before Mike could move and took the tray she was holding. “No, you wouldn’t, Polly, don’t be silly. You told me yourself you turned down those two excellent posts in France because you wanted to come back here.”

    “Yes, but this is my home. Your situation was quite different.”

    “Don’t let’s discuss it again,” he said with a sigh, setting the tray on the coffee table.

    Mike eyed it with great interest: those looked like some of Mrs Mitchell’s homemade biscuits!

    “There’s always the possibility,” said Polly on a cautious note, sitting down, “that they might renew the offer.”

    “There isn’t,” he said shortly. “The Warden was furious when I turned it down in favour of the redbrick. Well, ‘deeply disappointed, Browne,’ was the phrase, but furious to the rest of the world.”

    “I expect he’ll get over it,” she said with her usual sunny calm. “I might as well pour, Mike likes it weak as well.”

    Mike twitched. “Eh?”

    “I said, you like your tea weak, too. Those are some of Mum’s biscuits, she sent me up a tin last week,” she said, smiling at him. “Help yourself.”

    Mike didn’t say No.

    About half an hour later he didn’t say No when, as he and Browne left together, the Pom asked him if he’d fancy a beer. Well, might get a bit more out of him.

    “She’s very upset, of course,” said Roger with a sigh as they relaxed on his comfortable old suite and sipped.

    “Yeah. Said anything to you about who she thinks mighta done it?”

    “No, she’s only said very firmly that Carrano, Rod, and young Jack Banks are all incapable of it.”

    “Uh-huh. Whadda you think?”

    “I haven’t your experience of the criminal personality, Collingwood,” he replied with apparent sincerity.

    “Call me Mike, for God’s sake!” said Mike on a cross note.

    “You’ve been calling me Browne ever since it happened,” replied Roger simply.

    “Uh—oh. Well, take it that I’m off duty at the moment—though anything you say may be used in evidence against you.”

    “Yes, I’ll do that, Mike,” he said, smiling at him. “Er—well, theoretically the human being is capable of the greatest atrocities, but when it comes down to actual cases, I’m with Polly: I can’t see anyone I know drowning that pathetic little man in the way you described.”

    “No,” said Mike heavily. “Anything more you can tell me about Ma and Pa Jablonski? Or anything, really, that you weren’t saying in front of her. Anything more about the gambling thing?”

    “We-ell… I wouldn’t swear I had it all clear, actually, Mike: that whole period is inextricably mixed in my mind,” he said slowly—Mike swallowed a sigh—“with my, er, realisation of my misconceptions about several people whom I’d met out here.”

    Yeah? Was that the point at which it dawned that Polly had feet of something verging perilously on clay? However, Roger then said with a sigh: “‘Carrano’: doesn’t that sound like an Italian or possibly Spanish name to you?”

    “No, sounds like a pair of shoes.”

    Gulping, he said in a weak voice: “So you know that story, then?”

    “The whole country knows—” Mike broke off, lips twitching. “I see: you didn’t, eh?”

    “No. I said something fatuous about his Italian looks and Polly went into hysterics.”

    Mike cleared his throat and said, not unsympathetically: “Wrong side of the world. Mind you, there’s loads of Italians over in Australia. Don’t think our climate appealed. That or they weren’t white enough for the immigration policy of the time.”

    The streets of the city were thronged with Polynesian faces of all kinds—a bewildering variety, in fact; Roger hadn’t been aware there were that many different sorts. “What about all the Polynesians?”

    “Times have changed since the Fifties. Or put it like this, we let them in on condition they work in the factories in South Auckland.” The Pom’s jaw had dropped so Mike said on an irritable note: “I am aware of a few issues!”

    “Yes. Sorry. Well, I wasn’t aware of the unlikelihood of anyone’s having Italian or Spanish blood out here as opposed to Maori.”

    “Mm. Mixed, in his case. Um, look, did I get it wrong or did she mean that Carrano understood what old Jablonski said to him in Polish?”

    He sighed. “You and me, both, Mike. Hang on; fancy another beer?”

    Why not? All Mike had to look forward to was his boring little motel unit in Puriri.

    Roger came back the fresh relay and Mike said: “Go on, spill the beans. And incidentally, I wouldn’t mind knowing what Carrano’s real name was.”

    “If this makes you feel silly, let me assure you it can’t possibly make you feel as small as it did me! The nuns who ran the orphanage were mainly locals or Irish, but there was one old Polish one. –Mm,” he said sympathetically to Mike’s wry grimace.—“As to his name—I think the Jacob might have been because it was the saint’s day when he was left at the convent, but they gave him the surname Carter. Do you know Carter’s Bay or Carter’s Inlet, at all? It was after that family: they owned a lot of land in that area and when Jake was a baby the then head of the family was one of the chief benefactors of the orphanage.” He smiled just a little. “I asked Polly—some time after the scales had been removed my eyes, this was—if they were a Catholic family, and she said she’d wondered that, too, but Jake said they weren’t, but what did that matter, it was the only orphanage from here to Spirit’s Bay. –It’s interesting that that hasn’t replaced ‘from Land’s End to John o’ Groats’ in the local vernacular,” he added thoughtfully.

    “Influence of a hundred years of national literacy,” said Mike, rather forgetting himself. “Well, the ability to read the racing news,” he amended on a sheepish note, as Roger smiled at him.

    “Yes, I’d say so. Have you noticed how quite a few words are mispronounced in the local dialect: pronounced as they’re written, rather than as English historical phonology would dictate?”

    “Um, no, I was born here, too, mate,” said Mike feebly.

    “Ever-lyn,” said Roger thoughtfully.

    “Eh?”

    He raised his eyebrows slightly. “Brideshead Revisited?”

    “Aw—that thing. I thought it was crap. All the women seem to have run mad over it. Oh—right: Ever-lyn Waugh, eh?” said Mike innocently.

    “Mm. Evelyn Waugh,” he murmured.

    Mike swallowed. “Not really? I’ve never heard it pronounced like… Even the TV announcers never— Okay, we’re ignorant Colonials.”

    “No, as you pointed out, you’re literate Colonials.”

    “Right,” said Mike, smiling feebly.

    Roger took a swig of beer. “There is more. I thought you might have recognised the name Carter.”

    “Uh—well, I’ve driven past Carter’s Bay on the way to Whangarei. Uh—and Carrano’s bach is up that way: the dump Don Banks wanted to buy off him.”

    “Yes.” Roger saw that he really didn’t know. “The reason that Mrs Jablonski still owns half of the bach is because her father left it to them jointly, and he was Harry Carter, the son of the benefactor of the orphanage.”

    Mike gaped at him.

    “Mm. The old man—Harry Carter’s father—died when Jake was still at school, but the son kept up the connection with the orphanage, and that was how Jake met the daughter.” He swallowed in spite of himself. “Esmé Carter.”

    “Yeah,” said Mike weakly. “Right.”

    “He was only twenty-one when he wanted to marry her and though I gather he was doing quite well for himself financially—scrap metal, I think it was—initially her father was utterly opposed to it: she was of age but he threatened to disinherit her. That was what provoked the angry decision to change his name. The first thing his eye alighted on when he’d stormed out of Carter’s office was the ad in a shoe shop for Carrano Casuals.”

    “Yes,” said Mike limply. “Everybody knows the shoe shop bit. So that was why he changed his name!”

    “Mm. Temper,” said Roger neutrally.

    Well, yeah. But at twenty-one it was understandable. Bit different to lose it at fifty to the extent of shoving a bloke underwater and holding him there. By the look on his face Roger Browne was thinking the same thing. Mike drank beer and said nothing for a few moments. Then he said neutrally: “Any more where that came from?”

    “Uh—well, old Jablonski isn’t a count at all, apparently.”

    “Eh? Oh.”

    “According to Polly he could call himself the King of the Rainy Country and no-one out here would give a damn,” added Roger wryly.

    It might get up the noses of other Poles, but there weren’t that many of them in Auckland. “Well, yeah, none of us locals would, that’s for sure. Um… look, doesn’t it strike you as a bit odd that Carrano would cough up that much for the old bugger? I know he’s a multi-millionaire, but in my experience the rich get that way and stay like it because they know the value of a buck!”

    “I’ve got several theories about that,” replied Roger sourly, “each of which will probably strike you as more unlikely than the last. I favour one or another depending on how jaundiced I’m feeling at the moment.”

    Mike cleared his throat. “He did it to impress Polly, right?’

    “That’s one,” he agreed drily. “The more so as her making out that cheque to Corso had just shown him up.”

    Mike had been thinking that, actually. “Right. Uh—for Rod’s sake? He does sort of seem to think of himself more or less as the kid’s godfather. Or—uh—for the ex’s sake, unlovely though she is? We-ell… married her for her dad’s money, dumped her after the old joker left him half of it outright? Guilt feelings?”

    Roger shrugged. “That’s two and three, yes.”

    “Mm.”

    Roger finished his beer slowly and set the can down on the coffee table, making a wry face. “The terrifying clanging noises in the middle of the night on my roof, I learned the same day, are not giant bikies with Afros, chains and knuckledusters. Or cats,” he said sourly.

    Mike cleared his throat, heroically refraining from laughing.

    “Possums!” said Roger loudly.

    Mike broke down in helpless splutters. “Sorry!” he gasped at last.

    “That’s all right, you're not the only one. Oh—and the strange cries in the night round this way are owls.”

    “Owls?” said Mike limply.

    “Moreporks!” he said viciously.

    Mike gulped. “Uh—yeah. Little native owls.”

    “Nobody tells you,” said Roger on a tired note. “It’s all the norm to them—they all assume one knows. I have to admit it was round about then that I bloody nearly packed it in—went home. But there was nothing to go home to.”

    “Uh—right, you turned down a job,” recalled Mike hazily. He got up, yawning. “I’d better get off. Thanks for the beer. And the extra info.”

    “For what it was worth,” replied Roger, also getting up.

    Manners, registered Mike with a certain glumness. There’d been no-one in his life except Mrs Mitchell to drum a few manners into him. Well, her and Mr Mitchell: old Dave was shit-hot on stuff like standing up for ladies, not swearing in front of ladies, not eating off your knife, passing Mrs Mitchell the butter before she asked for it, not grabbing the butter before Mrs Mitchell—not to mention, before little Polly. Not to mention getting your filthy feet off Mrs Mitchell’s good sitting-room furniture, even when they weren’t filthy!

    “See ya,” he said at the door, forgetting for a moment who he was and who his host was.

    “Tomorrow?” replied Roger drily.

    Mike came to with a jump. “Not unless you remember something vital to the case. Well—thanks again for the beer.”

    “Not at all. Good-night, Mike,” he said nicely.

    Mike replied shortly: “’Night,” and plunged off across the field. He was nearing the first pohutukawa along the track when a voice said out of its shadow: “Who is it?”

    He leapt a foot but managed to say: “Glad to see you’re awake, Constable.”

    The constable stepped out from under the tree, looking both sheepish and relieved. Well, no-one much fancied meeting a murderer in cold blood on a fine December evening, part of the job or not. “Oh, it’s you, sir.”

    “Yeah. All quiet?”

    “Yes. Well, that lady,” he said, nodding at Polly’s place, “she was yelling before, and I thought there was something up, and I went over to see, but she was only calling the cat. Is it a tom?”

    “No, neutered. Big bugger, though, eh?”

    “Yeah. She reckons it doesn’t much like men: it specialises in running between your legs and tripping you up,” he said glumly.

    Mike’s lips twitched. “He got you, did he?”

    “Yeah: he came rushing up just as I was going down the front steps, I nearly broke me neck!” he revealed indignantly.

    Mike managed not to laugh. “Hazards of the job, Constable,” he said mildly.

    “Yessir,” the young man agreed glumly.

    “Well, keep your eyes and ears open, eh?”

    “Yessir.”

    Mike went on up the track, grinning to himself. The ruddy cat had got him, too: at Polly’s birthday party. It had been a lunchtime do, out in the old orchard, and the bloody creature had shot between his legs just as he was going in at the back door to take a leak. He wondered again, as he had then, if it did that to bloody Carrano, too. And involuntarily hoped fervently, as he had then, that it did.