The Summertime Dead Read online

  The Fire Brigade was one of three cricketing teams in town and its weakest, playing in C grade this season. With only one more match to be played and with no possibility of playing finals, Cole was already vaguely melancholy at the prospect of season’s end. He rarely played these days, not wanting to take a spot a youngster should occupy, so he felt strangely excited when he did get to pull on his boots, as he would today. Even if he batted at number 10 or 11 who was to say he wouldn’t get an elegant cover drive away to the fence, or parry a sharp, rising ball to race away along the ground to fine leg, or take a diving, reflex catch that came to him at impossible speed? That was the beauty of cricket for him – it was so easy to imagine the fabulous shots, the ball turning past the bat to collect off stump, the opposition batsmen dropping like flies.

  Even if the reality was usually quite different, he thought wryly, as he carried his boots and bag to the car. Nance had made a fruit cake last week and he put the plastic container it was in on top of bottles of Coke buried in ice blocks in the Esky, slamming the car boot shut.

  Cole switched on the car radio to hear Roy Orbison and turned up the volume as he drove about town collecting his younger teammates. First was Trevor Boland, a panel beater and friend of Lee Furnell. Jordan Jackson was gathered next, Boland having to dash to his front door to hurry him out of bed so Cole was left tapping his fingers impatiently on the steering wheel. Neil Black – Blackie – a storeman at Potter’s Grocery Store was waiting just as impatiently by the kerb outside his house, greeting them with, ‘You sleep in again numbnuts?’ – this directed at Jackson. To Cole it seemed these young men, all in their mid to late-twenties, never changed year-in, year-out. There was always the same ribbing, always the same jocular abuse. They all drove cars, but Cole continued the practice of older players ferrying the younger ones to games. When there was always beer after a game it also meant fewer drunken drivers on the roads on a Saturday night.

  Cole said, ‘Last game today and next weekend. It’d be good to go out with a win.’

  ‘To go with our one other win for the year,’ Boland muttered from alongside him in the front seat.

  As they settled in for the ride, Cole, looking to his passenger in the rear vision mirror, said, ‘There’s been some strife in the store, I hear, Blackie,’

  ‘Yeah. Stuff getting knocked off left, right and centre, sarge,’ Blackie said. ‘You’d reckon it would be the blow-ins too – and they do some of it – but we caught an old lady with her pockets full yesterday. I reckon she was about ninety,’ he said to laughter. ‘And Mr Potter reckons they’re the worst – the old ladies.’

  Cole raised his eyebrows. ‘I’ve heard that, too,’ he said.

  As the conversation turned to other things, the lanky and knockabout Boland went on to vent his opinions on the state of cricket in the town before broaching the topic on everyone’s tongues – the double murders. The way he looked at Cole as they drove on told Cole he had something on his mind.

  ‘There’s no news yet on Max and Rosaleen,’ Cole said quietly.

  ‘It wasn’t Lee. I know him better than anybody and it wasn’t him,’ Boland said. ‘It was someone at the dance.’ And as he went on, his voice rose. ‘Quade shouldn’t have been with her either. Ratting on his mate, that’s what he was doing. And everyone says Max this and Max that, but it wasn’t the first time he’d done it either. And I know it wasn’t you that roughed up Lee at the station, but that wasn’t right.’

  His friends murmured agreement.

  Cole let his last comment slide, saying, ‘If you know something that you haven’t already told us, come to the station and speak with one of the Homicide Squad detectives.’

  ‘They’ve already seen me,’ Boland said. ‘They want me to come into the station on Monday.’

  ‘Me, too,’ Blackie said.

  ‘I’ll be telling them it was someone at that dance,’ Boland repeated stubbornly. ‘Someone who didn’t like what Max was doing, if you ask me.’

  ‘And you obviously didn’t like it, either,’ Cole said.

  ‘No, and the same with other people. It’s just bloody bad. Lee’s my best mate.’

  Cole looked across to see Boland pinching his eyes against the tears.

  ‘It was a terrible thing that happened to Max and Rosaleen, and whoever did it will get what’s coming,’ Cole promised. ‘If Lee’s done nothing wrong he’s got nothing to worry about.’

  ‘He didn’t do anything,’ Boland repeated.

  In the silence that followed, Blackie asked, ‘Is someone picking up Jarvis?’

  In the rear vision mirror Cole caught his back seat passengers grinning slyly at each other.

  ‘Maybe I’d better go there just in case no one else does,’ he decided.

  ‘We could give him a miss,’ Jackson suggested.

  ‘Now now,’ Cole gently admonished them as he steered a course toward the fringe property where Phillip Jarvis lived.

  Having already lost some time, Cole gunned the car up the drive scattering chickens into the safety of a pen near the house.

  ‘See if his Mum wants a game, too,’ Blackie joked.

  When none of the others offered to go inside to get Jarvis, Cole got out and trudged to the door.

  Like many farms in the district the Jarvis property spread no further than twenty acres, with a herd of milkers of about the same number, a herd that was barely viable in this day and age. Living on land overrun with tussocks and weeds, the Jarvis brood was a wild lot, the twin sons Phillip and Gifford barely under the control of their cantankerous mother. Cole had cause to speak with Phillip on more than one occasion, usually regarding the driving of unroadworthy and unregistered vehicles, and had tried to get both young men involved in the cricket team. That at least one of them was interested he saw as a win of sorts.

  Their yard was littered with the debris of their homespun mechanics and Cole wondered about the father who was rarely there, mad Ken Jarvis, who spent more time in than out of the French Island prison. He was a resident there now, but when he was released it was clear as day to Cole what would happen – he’d go on a long bender at the property, beat up his wife and offspring, smash the house to pieces and then stagger into town to barge into strangers’ houses and urinate in the street.

  It was Mrs Jarvis who came to the door and from a gaunt face she looked Cole up and down, saw him in his whites and put two and two together. She screeched out to her son who came to the door swinging his bag, his pasty-faced complexion at odds with the raven-black hair and dark eyes both twins had.

  ‘Here, you’ll need something to drink in this weather,’ she told Phillip sharply as she handed him a bottle of water. ‘And make sure you eat something when you’re playing. You don’t want to get sunstroke.’ She turned to Cole. ‘And I always tell him over and over sergeant, and do you think he ever listens?’

  It wasn’t a question that warranted answering and he noticed the son’s reaction to it. Phillip Jarvis threw Cole a dismissive glance as if to say What would she know? But it was a resentful glance too, a glance that told him that the battle between mother and sons was an ongoing one, that she was still treating them like children and not the young men they were.

  ‘Let’s get going. Locky will have tossed the coin by the time we get there,’ Cole said.

  Where there had been happy banter in the car before, the rest of the trip to Cooma passed in uncomfortable silence. Jarvis sat in the backseat wedged between Jackson and Blackie, Boland turning now and then to grin at them.

  As they neared the sports ground set off a dreary back road, Blackie asked, ‘Hey Jarvis, how come Giff isn’t playing today? Too busy looking after the animals is he?’

  ‘He doesn’t want to do anythin’,’ Jarvis answered. ‘Just sit on his bum all day.’

  ‘Wants to stay home with Baa-bara does he?’

  Jarvis, his voice low,
said, ‘We don’t even have sheep, dipshit.’

  Blackie pushed further. ‘Giff wants to keep his girlfriends all to himself, right?’

  And in the rear-vision mirror, Cole caught the wild glint in Jarvis’s eye as he looked up.

  ‘There’s always plenty to do on a farm,’ Cole told them as he sensed Jarvis about to bite back.

  ‘Yeah. He’ll muck about with the old car engines. He can’t drive a car, but he’s good with that,’ Jarvis told Cole.

  ‘Not as handy as he is with Baa-bara, I bet,’ Blackie pressed.

  Cole cut in, ‘Knock it off, boys. It’s the last game of the year. Let’s make it a good one.’

  Chapter 12

  On Monday morning old Horrie Ranson came into the police station just as Cole happened to be at the counter.

  ‘I went to the grocers to do the shopping and Cec Potter gave me these for change,’ Horrie said, staring at the coins in his palm with disdain. ‘Is it legal senior? Cec says it’s this new decimated currency.’

  ‘Decimal, Horrie,’ Cole corrected him. ‘Everything is going to be in cents and dollars now and they’ll gradually take out the pounds, shillings and pence. Here, let me show you.’ He patiently spread the gleaming new coins on the wooden counter between them, ranking them in value. One cent. Two. Ten. ‘There’s a five cent piece but you don’t have one yet. The ten equals a shilling. This one’s a twenty and equals two bob.’ He pulled shiny new plastic notes from his own pocket. ‘This is the one dollar note. This here’s the two.’

  ‘Well I haven’t seen these yet,’ Horrie said open-mouthed, as though Tutankhamen’s treasure had just been revealed to him. He handled the dollar note. ‘It doesn’t feel real, don’t you think, Lloyd?’ he said.

  ‘It’s the government’s doing, so we’ve just got to get used to it whether we like it or not,’ Cole said.

  ‘They get you every way, don’t they?’

  ‘I guess they do,’ Cole answered, knowing only agreement with Horrie would prevent the conversation from continuing indefinitely.

  Mid-morning the detectives wandered into the station.

  ‘Meeting for the detectives, Sergeants Cole and Holloway in my office in ten minutes,’ Fielder said, slapping the station counter with an open hand as he passed through. ‘How about someone here make me a coffee, hey?’ he called.

  Had Fielder discovered something, or was he about to involve the station personnel in the murder investigation in some new way? Cole wondered.

  As he waited for the meeting to commence he thought, too, about Saturday’s match and how the game now seemed to hang in the balance. His team’s 9 for 127 wasn’t the greatest score but neither was the team they were playing. A rapid loss of wickets late in the afternoon had seen him coming to the wicket gloves in hand, and he’d managed to stay seven not out at the compulsory close of their innings. A three and four singles. He was happy with that, as he was with Phillip Jarvis’ knock of 43, the real surprise packet of the day. What stunned those watching, however, was what happened after Jarvis had been given out through a straightforward caught and bowled dismissal. He’d come off the field in tears and thrown his bat and equipment all around the paved concrete surrounds of the changing shed, refusing to speak with anyone for a full twenty minutes. There was a pained look on his face as he sat on the boundary line watching out the rest of the innings.

  Cole had quietly picked up his things, told him what a great hand he’d played and patted his shoulder before leaving him to his own company. To Cole’s great surprise, no one had teased Jarvis on the way home.

  And then Fielder upset his thoughts by calling them in to the meeting.

  The five men sat in the office given over to the detectives, Fielder with Holloway’s report on the murders before him, a mug of steaming coffee beside it.

  ‘I’ve read through this report of yours, sergeant,’ Fielder said as he looked pointedly at Holloway. ‘And I’ve read and I’ve read but I can’t seem to find any mention of one Amy Bridges in it. Why is that?’

  ‘Amy Bridges?’ Holloway said, his mouth open.

  ‘I’m sure you know who she is. She disappeared here four years ago and hasn’t been seen since. Don’t you think her disappearance deserved at least a mention in your report?’

  ‘I … I didn’t think it had anything to do with Faraday and Quade. No one does,’ he said, looking to Cole.

  ‘Even though foul play was a distinct possibility?’

  ‘We think it’s Lee Furnell this time, don’t we? But he couldn’t have killed Amy Bridges when he was fourteen or fifteen.’

  ‘Are you certain of that?’

  ‘No, but …’

  ‘Then don’t you think it was a link worth following, at least eliminating it if nothing else?’

  ‘That could be, but …’

  ‘And what about this other business, the underwear stolen from the Faradays? Has that lead been run to ground yet?’

  ‘I only just realised that, I told Lloyd … Senior Sergeant Cole … about it.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘The man convicted was named Tom Tomasulo …’

  ‘Tommy Tomato to his friends,’ Fielder interjected, to a laugh from Quattrochi.

  ‘He was given a good behaviour bond when it went to court,’ Holloway pushed on.

  ‘So he could keep on doing it. Do we know where this moron is now?’

  ‘Not yet, I haven’t had a chance to …’

  ‘Then how about you take a moment of your precious time and try to ascertain his present whereabouts, sergeant? Do you think you can manage that? If it’s not too much trouble for you, that is?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘We need a lot more focus on the case here,’ Fielder told the room. ‘I want to know about everything even remotely connected to Lee Furnell. Whether you think it’s important or not. We’re not going to catch this little weasel without everyone pulling their weight. Do I make myself clear?’

  Everyone understood.

  ‘Good then,’ Fielder went on. ‘What else do we know today that we didn’t yesterday or the day before?’

  Cole said, ‘We know that Peter Quade, the dead boy’s father, is in some fairly serious financial trouble. He used to run the newsagency but sold up and used the proceeds to start speculating in property. It turns out he took too low a price for selling his business, and borrowed too much investing in new ones. We’ve got the bank records. From what I can see, he has to have much more money going out than coming in.’

  ‘And you think there might be some kind of payback going on with his son’s murder?’

  ‘I think it’s too much of a stretch to say that just yet.’

  ‘So do I. So what have we got on Lee Furnell that’s new, and relevant, that’s what I want to know.’

  ‘There’s a lot that could be relevant to the case,’ Cole argued. ‘It might not look like it just yet, but the dots might all join up in the end if we just know what we’re looking at.’

  ‘Except this isn’t a child’s game, Lloyd.’ He turned again to Holloway. ‘Sergeant, what would you say is the firm evidence pointing to Lee Furnell at this moment?’

  But Holloway was visibly rattled and looking for a means of escape.

  ‘I’m … I’m not sure,’ he stuttered. ‘He was Faraday’s boyfriend … He … We couldn’t find him to begin with the night they disappeared. We …’

  ‘I said evidence.’

  ‘… then maybe the motive. Quade with his girlfriend. If someone comes forward … then we hope the evidence will …’

  ‘Hope! Hope? Let me be clear about this, Holloway. You need to start operating on a little more than hope around here. You’ve got to tell us every little thing that might be important to the case. No exceptions!’

  The other two detectives looked on as imperturbably as the Sphinx.
/>   Cole said, ‘We understand you’re in charge now, Detective Fielder. You let us know what you want us to do and we’ll do it. All we want to do is help, not make it harder for anyone.’

  ‘I wasn’t addressing you, Lloyd. I just don’t appreciate general sloppiness,’ Fielder said, tossing the report back to Holloway. ‘When are the autopsy reports due?’

  ‘With luck, tomorrow,’ Cole said. ‘The Faradays and Quades want to bury their children so hopefully the coroner will release the bodies to them tomorrow too. There’s a lot of grief.’

  ‘And there’ll be a lot more coming our way soon if we don’t nail Furnell. Here’s what I want from you, Holloway. We’ve got a few of his mates coming in today to start with. I want a list of the names of every one of Quade’s, Faraday’s – and Furnell’s – friends and associates on my desk by five p.m. By tomorrow lunchtime I want the names of everyone who was at that dance, too. And that’ll just be for openers.’

  The detectives adjourned to their own room leaving Cole and Holloway to muse over what had just occurred.

  ‘So much for inviting him to your house,’ Holloway said. ‘Look what thanks you get for it. Associates. What kind of an eighteen-year-old lad has associates? Where does he think he is, back in America?’

  ‘I’m not taking it personally. The party was to welcome all three of them. If Fielder wants to throw his weight around here I’m not losing any sleep over it. You shouldn’t either, Terry. We’re doing our best.’

  ‘Except I don’t think it’ll ever be good enough for him. Especially not from me.’