Pride's Harvest (41 page)

Hardstaff sat down, suddenly feeling as old as he had this morning when he had been with Fred Strayhorn in the Noongulli woolshed. “I'm sorry, Sergeant. For all I know, you may be a Doctor of Philosophy. Look at these books.” He waved a hand at the walls. “Most people take my son-in-law for a drunken buffoon. He's read all of those, or most of them. At one time he used to quote them to me—Plato, de Montaigne, even Machiavelli. He used to say I could have taught Machiavelli a thing or two. I took it as a compliment. We did compliment each other occasionally in those days. But not any more. Nor do we quote anything to each other any more. A pity. He had wit, but he drowned it in Chivas Regal.
That men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains.
I'm not sure, but I think that's from
Othello.”

“Are you a reformed alcoholic?” said Clements straight-faced.

Hardstaff looked at the big man as if he had not expected a whit of wit in him. Then he smiled. “No, Sergeant. I've always known when to call a halt. Well, almost always.”

“Were you drunk the morning you strangled your wife?” said Malone.

Hardstaff looked at him, hurt, as if Malone had done something ungentlemanly. “That's a low
blow,
Inspector. Why do you ask it?”

“We have two people who are willing to go into court and swear that what you told the police seventeen years ago was totally untrue.”

“Fred Strayhorn? Who is the other one?”

“No names, not yet.”

Hardstaff closed his eyes, as if looking for memory on the backs of the lids; then he opened them. “Ruby Dawson. Ruby Mungle, as she now is.”

Malone went on, “Then there's the Sagawa murder. We know now—” They didn't know; but you never told the suspect what you guessed. Machiavelli might not be quoted in the Police Department, but he had his disciples there. “We know it wasn't Sagawa who was supposed to be shot.”

“Who was it then?”

“You'd know that better than we would.” He stopped being a fast bowler, bowled a wrong „un: which is another word for a lie. “Your Mercedes passed another car as you drove away from the cotton gin office around ten thirty last Monday night. You had your lights on high-beam, so the driver couldn't see you, but he recognized the car.”

Hardstaff shook his head. “No, Inspector. On high-beam you can see nothing of what's approaching you. I've been blinded too often by fools who drive on our roads on high-beam, who never dip their lights when you approach them.”

“That answer's too pat, Mr. Hardstaff. Have you been practising it?”

Hardstaff knew he had made a mistake; but he showed no sign of it. “I think on my feet. When you've stood on as many campaign platforms as I have, you have to be quick. I'm an old-time political animal, Inspector, not one of these latter-day wimps who just want to talk to a television camera and not an audience.”

“Then it must have been your daughter's Mercedes. It was observed earlier in the night standing off the highway just up the road from the entrance to the gin. We understand she was a champion shot. Those are her guns?” He nodded at the rack.

“
Not all of them. Some of them are her husband's.” He began to feel the ground shifting beneath his feet. He had never been a romantic, though he had never thought the end of the road would be at a cliff's edge.

“Does he own a Twenty-two?”

He was tempted. He had betrayed other men, it was part and parcel of the political life; but they had been sent only into obscurity, not to prison. “No. The heavier guns are his.”

Clements got up from behind the desk and took the Tikka from the rack. “When did you borrow this from your daughter? This is the one, isn't it?”

Hardstaff nodded. He was resigned now; all that could be saved was pride. “Last Sunday.”

“Why? Don't you have guns of your own?”

“Yes. I just wanted to try that one. My own are Winchesters.”

“We're confiscating it as evidence,” said Malone. “Write out a receipt for it, Russ.”

“Evidence for what?” But he knew he was just putting off the inevitable.

“Evidence for charging you or your daughter, or both, that you murdered Kenji Sagawa and that you attempted to murder me.”

“I thought you were investigating the murder of my wife?”

“Oh, we're sure you did that, too. But that's a case for the local District, not us. We'll turn over what we've dug up and they'll charge you, I've no doubt about that. But the Sagawa case is our pigeon. We'll charge you and probably your daughter—that will depend on our questioning of her—”

Hardstaff interrupted: “Can they try someone for two murders at once, murders that are unconnected?”

Malone caught a glimpse of which way Hardstaff was hoping to go. “No, I think the Sagawa case would take precedence, it's the more recent. Then when you've served your time for that, you'd be re-arrested and tried again. But that's unofficial advice. You'd better talk to Trevor Waring on that. He's out in the garden—do you want us to bring him in?”

Hardstaff shook his head. He knew he was beyond the help of lawyers; that is, if pride and
Amanda
were to be saved. All at once he wished for a sudden fatal heart attack; but he had the constitution of a Clydesdale, he was doomed to live too long. But not long enough to be charged with the murder of Dorothy: he would be dead in prison long before he had served the sentence they would give him for the later murder.

“No, there'll be time for him later. Yes, I shot Mr. Sagawa and I attempted to shoot you last night.”

“Why? I mean, why did you kill Sagawa?”

“I don't believe I have to give you a motive.”

Malone had not really expected an answer; but he had had to ask the question, Clements would have had to make a note of it. He looked at Clements, whose face was blank. Both knew Hardstaff was lying, but all at once they had no desire to contradict him. But, again, something had to be said for the notebook: “We think you're lying, Mr. Hardstaff.”

“Prove it.” The old man's smile showed none of his teeth; it was the sort of smile that his defeated political enemies knew so well.

“You're protecting your daughter,” said Clements, but made no note of the question.

“Aren't you going to make a note of that, Sergeant? No, I don't think so. You don't want to prolong this case any more than I do. All the law ever wants is its pound of flesh. Perhaps you two want more than that, but you'll never be thanked for it. I confess to killing Mr. Sagawa. Leave it at that.”

“We still want to talk to your daughter,” said Malone doggedly.

“No. I can't forbid you to do that—” He smiled again, a little less sardonically, almost whimsically. “Not so long ago people did what I told them, at least the people around here and in the Party. But you're both Left-wingers, aren't you?”

“I think we're middle-of-the-roaders.”

“No place for an intelligent man to be. Someone once said that the middle of the road was occupied only by the white line and dead armadillos. I believe he was an American. Here it would be the white line and dead wombats . . . no, leave my daughter alone. You've got your pound of flesh. It's old
and
leathery, but it'll do for the purpose.” He stood up, surprised at how weak his legs felt. “Shall we go now?”

Malone and Clements looked at each for a long moment, each waiting for the other to make the decision. They were just two men; rank meant nothing at this moment. Then Malone said, “Hugh Narvo is outside, Russ. Go and get him. He and Curly Baldock can do the charging, it's their case.”

Clements went out of the room. The old man and the detective stood looking at each other in silence; they came from different worlds, more than just age separated them. Then Hardstaff said, “You've chosen the best way out, Inspector. For all concerned.”

“No,” said Malone. “I've chosen the easy way out.”

VI

Two days later Malone and Clements drove out of Collamundra in the Commodore, heading east for Sydney and the punters who might have no respect for them but never thought of them as outsiders. Lisa and the children had left on yesterday's plane and Malone had been at the airport to see them off. Ida and the Waring children were there and Trevor Waring had arrived ten minutes before the plane was due to depart.

“I'm glad it's over,” Lisa had said. “The murder case, I mean. But who would have thought
he
would have done it? How did you and Russ manage it?”

“Luck. An essential talent for a cop.”

He kissed her, then the children. Maureen was as loquacious as ever, glad to be going home to civilization and five TV channels. Tom was still wearing his stockman's hat, still determined to be a tomeroo, now reciting bush ballads that Tas had taught him, still droving cattle across the river of his dreams. Claire was out of love, returning to Jason or Ben or Shane, whoever had been the crush of a fortnight ago. Malone waved goodbye to them as they walked out to the plane and understood why Chess Hardstaff had pleaded guilty to the wrong murder. The hardest part to believe was that the arrogant, hard old man had had that much love left in him.

As
Malone went to get into the Commodore to drive back to the police station, Waring came across to him. “I've seen Chess. He's still refusing to offer any defence.”

“I think you'll just have to accept it, Trev. You can't win „em all, not if your client wants to be a loser.”

“He's never wanted to lose before. He'd have killed to have won.” He didn't appear to have remarked the irony of his words; he seemed bemused by the stubborn silence of Hardstaff. “The district will never get over this.”

“Have you talked to Amanda and Doc Nothling?” He had left the police questioning of them to Hugh Narvo. Pontius Pilate, he thought, had nothing on me.

“Not yet. I rang Amanda, but she refused to talk to me.”

“What about the doc?”

“He came in this morning.”

“How was he?”

“In a state of shock, I think. I got the feeling he knew more than he wanted to tell me, but I couldn't get anything out of him. He's asked Anju Bedi to take over for him at the hospital for a few days. I don't think anyone ever thought it was going to end up like this.” He looked in a state of shock himself. “Not Chess. How long will they hold him over at Cawndilla?”

Hugh Narvo had thought it wise to move Hardstaff from Collamundra to District HO at Cawndilla. “That's up to you, Trev. If you can get the magistrate to grant bail, he could be out tomorrow.”

“Will you oppose bail?”

Malone held out the hands that had washed each other; but Waring didn't recognize the gesture, a strange lapse for a lawyer. “That's up to Hugh Narvo and the locals.”

“I suppose you must feel pretty pleased with yourself?”

He looked for malice, but Waring's face was as bland as when he had first met him. “Not really,” he said and left it at that.

Waring shook hands and Malone watched him till he had got into the Mercedes and backed it
out
of the small parking lot. He drove away, followed by Ida and the children in the Land-Rover. As she went out the airport gates Ida waved to him. There was something forlorn about the gesture and he wondered how much longer the Waring marriage would last.

He was about to get into the Commodore when the Mercedes coupé pulled in beside him. Young Chester Nothling-Hardstaff, wearing a hat with a school band round it, a school tie circling his neck, got out, said “good morning” politely and went round to the back of the car and opened the boot. Malone hesitated, looking across the top of the Mercedes at Amanda.

“You've just missed the plane.”

“I fly Father's plane, I have a pilot's licence. Take the bags over, darling,” she said to her son. “I'll be with you in a moment.”

The boy suddenly lost his politeness, looked belligerently at Malone, then slammed down the lid of the boot, picked up two suitcases and went across to a side gate beyond which were parked several light aircraft. A rifle in a canvas case was slung across his back.

“He's going to find it very rough at school for a while,” said Amanda.

“Especially if he arrives carrying a gun.”

“He's in the school cadets.” Her voice had iron filings in it.

“Where does he go?”

She named a school in Sydney, one of the State's oldest and most exclusive. “His grandfather and his great-grandfather went there. He'll survive.”

“Because he's a Hardstaff?”

“Yes.” The pride was still there, despite the battering it would have taken over the past two days. “Your husband didn't come out to see you off?”

“Don't be so casual, Inspector. Ask the direct question. Where is Max? I don't know. He moved out of our house on Sunday night. We are separating. There will be a divorce when all—when all this is over.” For just a moment her voice faltered.

“Are you staying on in Collamundra?”

“
Of course!”

“Sorry. I should've known.” He had to admire her. “Like you said about your son—you'll survive.”

“Yes, Inspector. Yes, I shall.”

She was challenging him; but the case was over for him, there was no extra time to be played. But he had to have the last word: “Thanks to your father.”

He got into the Commodore, smiled at her through the open window, then drove out of the parking lot. In the driving mirror he saw her still standing by the Mercedes, staring after him, stiff and unyielding as an iron post, pride, arrogance and confidence in her invulnerability still intact. But time, as it had with her father, might eventually catch up with her. By then, however, Malone would be retired and there would be no satisfaction in it for him.