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The Broken Shore: A Novel
The Broken Shore: A Novel
The Broken Shore: A Novel
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The Broken Shore: A Novel

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

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Winner of the Colin Roderick Award for Australian writing, the Ned Kelly Award for Australian crime fiction, and the CWA Duncan Lawrie Dagger Award.

Peter Temple's The Broken Shore is a transfixing and moving novel about a place, a family, politics and power, and the need to live decently in a world where so much is rotten.

The Broken Shore, his eighth novel, revolves around big-city detective Joe Cashin. Shaken by a scrape with death, he's posted away from the Homicide Squad to the quiet town on the South Australian coast where he grew up. Carrying physical scars and more than a little guilt, he spends his time playing the country cop, walking his dogs, and thinking about how it all was before. But when a prominent local is attacked in his own home and left for dead, Cashin is thrust into what becomes a murder investigation. The evidence points to three boys from the nearby aboriginal community—everyone seems to want to blame them. Cashin is unconvinced, and soon begins to see the outlines of something far more terrible than a burglary gone wrong.

Peter Temple is currently being hailed as the finest crime writer in Australia, but it won't be long before he is recognized as what he really is—one of the nation's finest writers, period. Born in South Africa, Temple is writing a dynamic kind of literary thriller that ultimately defies classification.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateMay 27, 2008
ISBN9781466806740
The Broken Shore: A Novel
Author

Peter Temple

Peter Temple (1946-2018) is the author of many crime novels including Truth and The Broken Shore. Five of his novels have won the Ned Kelly Award for Crime Fiction. He was the first Australian author to win Britain's Gold Dagger Award for The Broken Shore. He worked as a journalist and editor for newspapers and magazines in several countries. He lived in Victoria, Australia.

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Rating: 4.148148148148148 out of 5 stars
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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I am so very glad I followed up on a suggestion from my aunt that I delve into Peter Temple's mystery novels. Strong shades of Reginald Hill transplanted to an Australian environment made this very difficult for me to put down. Wonderful characterisation, complex and believable plotting and a "voice" that is redolent of small town Australia. Enthralling. More please!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Great crime novel.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The Broken Shore by Peter Temple is a above-average police procedural that had me engrossed for days. Joe Cashin, a Melbourne homicide detective has been assigned to the rural area in south-eastern Australia that he grew up in. He is recovering from injuries that were sustained while on the job. Now having to deal with constant pain is part of his life. Unfortunately, small-town doesn’t mean small crime as all too soon Joe finds himself involved in a murder investigation of a prominent local man. The plot unfolds slowly but the style and sense of place were riveting. The author doles out information, letting the reader slowly put the facts together both on Joe’s back story and with the investigation. I have a feeling that this story with it’s racial tensions, corruption at various levels and such a dark view on humanity in general is one that would be familiar in many countries. The author also knew when to give the reader a break from such a bleak outlook and his use of humor was spot on. Of course, I just have to mention the two wonderful Standard Poodles that Joe has, these are not pampered show-dogs, but actual hunting hounds and it is very clear that this author knows not only dogs but this particular breed of dog.I have checked and it appears that there is a further book set in this area, but it also appears that the main character in the next book is not Joe Cashin, but his immediate supervisor and friend who had a supporting role in The Broken Shore. I will definitely be looking for this book and keeping my fingers crossed that this author brings Joe Cashin back as I would really like to read more about him.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Wow great story but a tough book to get through. Many other reviews have said what I would about this book.1. Considering Australians not only have slang for everything, use strange terms (for an American reader), and love to shorten words just for the sake of shortening them (servo= service station, para=paramedics), it is amazing someone didn't shorten this book.2. At least one hundred pages could be removed from this book and not affect the central story line.3. To many distractions (side stories) competing with the main story.With all that being said it is a very good murder mystery, but it is a tough read, not only because of the Australian slang- which the glossary in the back of the book covers some, but not all of the foreign words, but the language is at time reminiscent of an Irvine Welsh book, with prolific use of the C word. Don't say you were not warned.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I’m not normally a reader of crime fiction, but Peter Temple won the Miles Franklin for his later novel Truth, so he must be a cut above average. As I understand it, Truth is a semi-sequel to The Broken Shore, so I figured I’d read that first.The Broken Shore is essentially a hardboiled detective novel, complete with a jaded and cynical protagonist. Joe Cashin is in semi-retirement from the homicide squad after being badly injured in an attack by a drug lord that also left a younger detective dead. He now heads up the four-man police station in his quiet hometown of Port Monro, in coastal Victoria. He takes care of his dogs and is keeping himself busy by rebuilding his family’s old homestead. When a local billionaire is found murdered in his mansion, Cashin finds himself drawn back into the world of high profile crime.I read this while I was visiting Melbourne again, my adopted hometown, before going to the United States. It made me weirdly homesick – for a place which is not technically my home – in a way I can’t articulate. I think it’s the fact that most of it takes place in the Victorian countryside, which is still a bit of an alien place for me. Melbourne feels more like home than Perth ever did, but I never quite got used to Victoria’s old, well-settled, green countryside – a place where, unlike Western Australia, it’s perfectly normal to find a mansion owned by a wealthy horse-breeder out in the sticks.A bit less plausible was “the Daunt,” the Aboriginal township at the edge of the town of Cromarty (also fictional). It’s considered a place apart, and the local police fear raiding suspects’ houses there in the aftermath of the murder for fear of inciting what one character describes as “a Black Hawk Down situation.” This would have been more plausible in WA or the Northern Territory or Queensland; I’m not aware of any towns in Victoria with sizeable Aboriginal populations. Similarly, the character of Bobby Walshe – an up-and-coming Aboriginal politician in the fictional United Party – also felt very contrived. Temple engages well in general with the clash between Aboriginal and white Australia, which is the subtext of the first half of the novel, but our society isn’t quite at the level where Australian fiction can realistically have a David Palmer character. Which is sad, but there it is. It wouldn’t have stood out so much if the rest of the book hadn’t been pitch perfect in capturing the mood, the tone and the dialogue of a small Australian town.Those flaws aside, the first half of the novel is great – it’s fast, it’s punchy, it has a particularly well-written scene in which a police operation in a rainstorm goes badly wrong. Temple imbues Cashin with a world-weariness which sets the tone of the novel but avoids becoming too despondent or grating, and I thought I began to see why he went on to win the Miles Franklin (beyond the above-average level of prose and characterisation, for a crime novel). I honestly thought the crime would go unsolved, or be pinned on Aboriginal teenagers Cashin knew to be innocent, and that The Broken Shore would break free of the neat conclusions found in a traditional murder mystery.But in the second half new suspects emerge, and the investigation goes on, and unfortunately it doesn’t have the same flair as the first half of the novel. The ultimate murderers, in fact, feel more like pantomime villains, and the climax of the novel is a violent set-piece which belongs more in a cop movie than in the quiet, thoughtful, semi-literary novel I thought The Broken Shore was going to be.I still liked it a lot. I can unequivocally recommend it to fans of crime and mystery fiction, especially in Australia. I just felt a little let down by the ending, but perhaps I was unprepared for the genre conventions. I’ll still read Truth.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is categorized as a crime novel, but it is so much more. It is set in a small seaside town outside of Melbourne, and the ostensible story is about the investigation of the murder of its wealthiest inhabitant. In prose that is precise, crisp, and beautiful Temple develops his complex characters--a wounded detective, a wandering "swaggie" (handyman), disenchanted aboriginal youths, local politicians, and elderly pedophiles--while also immersing us in life in the life of a small Australian town.This book won a prestigious British award for best crime fiction, and Temple's next book Truth, which features some of the same characters as The Broken Shore, although another crime novel, won the Miles Franklin Award in 2010, the first time a crime writer has won an award of this caliber anywhere in the world.Highly recommended even if you think you don't like crime novels.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This book is a bit grisly and I found it difficult to keep the characters straight. I'm not a big fan of the author's style, but overall the story was intriguing and it kept me interested.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Awesome. The descriptions are so vivid you can practically taste them, yet Temple writes with brevity and a laconic Australian style that touches on a squillion social and moral issues.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The Broken Shore definitely succeeds as a gripping page-turner, and fans of crime fiction will find much to love about it. For non-devotees such as myself, this tale of murder in small-town Victoria (Australia) showcases some of the limitations of the genre: the hyper-masculine (yet secretly wounded) hero, the sometimes obvious red herrings and the intriguing yet completely implausible denouement. That said, it's surely a class above Dan Brown-style dross in terms of both writing and plot, and would make pleasing holiday reading for many.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I enjoyed The Broken Shore, set in Australia, and featuring a troubled cop and a good mystery. Deciphering the Aussie slang is part of the fun of this book. A rich and respected old man is beaten and left for dead, and suspicion points to 3 punks from the aboriginal community nearby. However, for cop Joe Cashin, the circumstances don't ring true, and he continues to investigate even when told to back off and suspended for not doing so. Very atmospheric and haunting.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    The cover quote was "Read page one and I challenge you not to finish it", unfortunately for me not only did page one not capture my attention, neither did the following 150+ pages I tried thinking it must improve. Whilst it may accurately capture life in a small town in Victoria, none of the characters are sympathetically drawn and the rampant racism expressed by most of them I found disturbing and a little difficult to believe was so widespread. Not recommended despite the cover hype.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Temple aims higher than a page turner, but page turner it is. An Australian equivalent of the USA's grit noir. Has all the basic detective stuff: broken detective, political department pressures, racist low-lifers, poor devils, rich devils, developers taking over the place, pedophiles, and crazed killers. Did I miss anything.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Temple is the winner of five Ned Kelly Awards by the Crime Writers' Association of Australia. Joe Cashin is a big city cop who has gone back to his childhood home on the coast of South Australia to recuperate, physically and mentally. When a local millionaire is murdered, Cashin won't accept the easy story that some local aboriginal boys are responsible. In the course of the investigation, Australian political and social divisions are examined, and the sense of place is almost another character.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This was a good book indeed. The plot is built up slowly and the writer took good care of former a real life character who is not perfect. He is scarred from a previous case. The only drawback to this book is that you ought to take notes of the names, because at the end of the book I would have liked to know who was who again.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Succinct, spare, witty, delightful prose. I felt like the real Australia was placed before me - the people, the places, their feelings for each other, their interrelationships. Dark and gritty but with a light, humorous touch - not an easy thing to pull off, but he's done it. Great characters too. Good twisting plot.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A great read, all potential immigrants should know it's not all Bondi Beach in Oz.Temple's style is quite different to European authors, particularly his dialogue which lacks pronouns. It takes a bit of getting used to but Kate in CH says that's how they talk in small town Oz. The plot is interesting enough but it was the dialogue that fascinated me. The dry humour and daily reality of the conversation paints each character perfectly. Temple is masterful at the art of showing through action and speech rather than telling.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Joe Cashin, a Melbourne detective, is working in his small home town while recuperating from a serious work injury. A wealthy landowner is fatally injured in his home and three young men from the nearby aboriginal settlement are accused. When the boys die under tragic circumstances doubt is cast over their guilt. Joe, with time on his hands does some digging and The details of the crime unravel. Good characters, well written, good plot, very enjoyable read.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is set in Australia. In a country town. It is very different from the usual cop/robber book. I enjoyed it.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A good read. Good plot, and good character development. It shows the darker side of life in Australia, but is believable
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I have long believed that quality crime fiction, the kind built around a sense of place and well developed characters, can give the armchair traveler a better feel for a country and its culture than all but the best written travel books. Books like Peter Temple’s The Broken Shore always remind me how true that is.Big city Australian cop Joe Cashin has been exiled to the little police station responsible for the security of the small South Australian coastal town he grew up in – not that the citizens there have much crime to worry about. He has ostensibly been sent to the area to recover from a serious physical injury, but Cashin is the kind of cop whose superiors sometimes need a break from him, and no one seems in a hurry to call him back. Perhaps that is because he is not much into political correctness or going out of his way to make his fellow policemen look good when they do not deserve it.When local millionaire Charles Bourgoyne is discovered in his mansion with his head bashed in, Cashin soon finds himself at odds with others in the department who are determined to pin the crime on a group of aboriginal teens caught trying to sell the man’s watch. After the case is officially closed, Cashin, ever the introspective loner, decides to investigate the crime on his own. His investigation, made more difficult by the town’s instinctive racism toward its aboriginal population, will lead him deep into a part of the community’s past tainted by child pornography and sexual abuse. Joe Cashin is not a perfect cop. In fact, he sometimes tends to make the kind of careless or lazy mistake that can place him, his fellow cops, or the success of an investigation in danger. The older he gets, the more Cashin questions what he has done with his life. He is close to no one, including his mother and only brother, but despite not being happy about the situation, he does little to remedy it. But the man has a good heart, and a very big one, at that. He is a staunch defender of the underdog and he believes in second chances, two qualities that mark him as a misfit among his fellow policemen.The Broken Shore is filled with memorable little moments, unforgettable characters, and complicated personal relationships. It is about much more than the murder of one old man with a past of his own to protect. Peter Temple uses dialogue to develop his characters much in the way that Elmore Leonard has become so celebrated for doing. It works well for Temple, and I thoroughly enjoyed getting into the revealing conversational rhythms of his characters. Readers will be well advised, however, to familiarize themselves with the Australian slang terms in the book’s glossary before beginning the novel (a fun, standalone read, that is) in order to keep the conversation flowing at the pace at which it is meant to be read.This, my first Peter Temple novel, is actually the author’s ninth, and I look forward to reading the others.Rated at: 4.0
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Great writing, tight, richly evocative of Southern Australia in the language, the politics, the racial issues. There are only so many stories you can spin in this genre, so those that are particularly nicely written (like this one, or the Kate Atkinson Case History novels) help lift it above the crowd. And it's a bonus for the armchair travel view of a different culture.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5

    I found Broken Shore a tad uninteresting. Perhaps it was due to the fact that it was my second consecutive Peter Temple book, or perhaps it was the overuse of 'colourful' and politically incorrect language. Let me quickly,add that this reviewer has been around the traps a few times and heard it all before.

    In many instances I felt many of the adjectives used were unnecessary and spoiled an otherwise (potentially) good storyline.

    The closing was very like a television show. One minute the hero is fighting for his life, the next, life threatening wounds are overcome and he is having a laugh with his mates at the pub, so to speak.

    I knew I had only one chapter to listen to and my mind may have been elsewhere.
    But if my mind had wandered what does that say for the story?
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Meet Joe Cashin - ex-homicide cop, now chief of the 4-members police station of Port Monro, Victoria. He had been injured as part of his previous career so now he is taking care of his dogs and the house that his grandfather once built - and almost destroyed. Until a very wealthy man dies and everyone seems to be happy to pin the murder on local boys.On the surface the novel is a mystery - it revolves around a murder. But Temple uses the format to tell us a story about Australia - its people and its culture; its problems and its struggles. The boys that everyone wants to be the culprit are Aboriginal; so are a lot of people in the Daunt, the area at the edge of Cromarty (the bigger city closest to Port Monro) which is a ghetto in all but name. But Cashin is not convinced and start following the leads he finds and old mysteries start to get to the surface. The mystery solution is almost cliched - it is a story we had read a lot of times. It is the setting and the world of Australia that makes the book different and unique. It is different from Temple's earlier Jack Irish books - while there the detective was the main character, here Victoria is the one that takes central stage - the setting is the book in more than one way. Combined with the storytelling abilities of the author, the book is engaging and one of the better mysteries I had read lately.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Crime fiction is not my preferred genre, but this is gripping and engrossing - the detective's character is well drawn and there's some excellent dialogue.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Fairly good yarn but I'm not really into crime books. Very accurately depicts the funny, dry, self-deprecating humour of many Australians.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Oh, I do like Temple's writing. Seriously do.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Very involving mystery where the setting serves as an important part of the story.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The first Peter Temple book I have read, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Appealing to the Australian sense of humor I found his gift in understatements wonderful. The pace of the book is not quite right at the end, it starts very slowly and continues at a good pace, till he realises that he must solve the crime and tie up all the loose ends in about three pages! Set in rural coastal Victoria, Australia, the description of the setting is brillaint, his main character Cashin, is a grumpy aging-man type character, very irritated by most things but totally endearing to the reader. AS well as being a good yarn, it touches social issues of race, politics, religion, depression and police corruption. No-one is perfect in this story, not all the bad guys get caught. Not fatalistic, more an attempt to tbe realistic. He gives hope and enjoyment in the friendships and characters that are developed in the stroy and the sense that no matter how bad things may seem, tomorrow is another day. I am looking for more Peter Temple books.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I can't get enough of Peter Temple: everytime I read one of his novels I'm enthralled and impressed. The curse of degree in literature is a tendency to become dispassionate and academic, to anaylyse prose style and study metaphors, even when reading the most engaging book. Temple's work turns me into a reader again - his is the art of the flawlessly constructed page-turner.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This brilliant novel, set in coastal Victoria, features Detective Sergeant Joe Cashin who is recuperating after an horrific experience in which one of his fellow detectives was killed and he was badly injured. A neighbour is found critically bashed, and Cashin is reluctantly drawn into what turns out to be a murder investigation. Local indigenous youths are suspected, but what should have been a simple intercept turns into a fatal (and highly suspicious) shooting by the local police. Temple draws fascinating characters and has a wonderful knack for terse, informative and often humorous conversation. The Victorian setting, Cashion’s dogs, a helpful swaggie, bigoted police and a host of other characters are economically and convincingly drawn. Themes of child abuse and indigenous inequality are skilfully conveyed without the slightest didacticism. Temple’s books are a joy.

Book preview

The Broken Shore - Peter Temple

Cashin walked around the hill, into the wind from the sea. It was cold, late autumn, last glowing leaves clinging to the liquidambars and maples his great-grandfather’s brother had planted, their surrender close. He loved this time, the morning stillness, loved it more than spring.

The dogs were tiring now but still hunting the ground, noses down, taking more time to sniff, less hopeful. Then one picked up a scent and, new life in their legs, they loped in file for the trees, vanished.

When he was near the house, the dogs, black as liquorice, came out of the trees, stopped, heads up, looked around as if seeing the land for the first time. Explorers. They turned their gaze on him for a while, started down the slope.

He walked the last stretch as briskly as he could, and, as he put his hand out to the gate, they reached him. Their curly black heads tried to nudge him aside, insisting on entering first, strong back legs pushing. He unlatched the gate, they pushed it open enough to slip in, nose to tail, trotted down the path to the shed door. Both wanted to be first again, stood with tails up, furry scimitars, noses touching at the door jamb.

Inside, the big poodles led him to the kitchen. They had water bowls there and they stuck their noses into them and drank in a noisy way. Cashin prepared their meal: two slices each from the cannon-barrel dog sausage made by the butcher in Kenmare, three handfuls each of dry dog food. He got the dogs’ attention, took the bowls outside, placed them a metre apart.

The dogs came out. He told them to sit. Stomachs full of water, they did so slowly and with disdain, appeared to be arthritic. Given permission to eat, they looked at the food without interest, looked at each other, at him. Why have we been brought here to see this inedible stuff?

Cashin went inside. In his hip pocket, the mobile rang.

Yes.

Joe?

Kendall Rogers, from the station.

Had a call from a lady, she said. Near Beckett. A Mrs. Haig. She reckons there’s someone in her shed.

Doing what?

Well, nothing. Her dog’s barking. I’ll sort it out.

Cashin felt his stubble. What’s the address?

I’m going.

No point. Not far out of my way. Address?

He went to the kitchen table and wrote on the pad: date, time, incident, address. Tell her fifteen, twenty. Give her my number if anything happens before I get there.

The dogs liked his urgency, rushed around, made for the vehicle when he left the building. On the way, they stood on station, noses out the back windows. Cashin parked a hundred metres down the lane from the farmhouse gate. A head came around the hedge as he approached.

Cop? she said. She had dirty grey hair around a face cut from a hard wood with a blunt tool.

Cashin nodded.

The uniform and that?

Plainclothes, he said. He produced the Victoria Police badge with the emblem that looked like a fox. She took off her smudged glasses to study it.

Them police dogs? she said.

He looked back. Two woolly black heads in the same window.

They work with the police, he said. Where’s this person?

Come, she said. Dog’s inside, mad as a pork chop, the little bugger.

Jack Russell, said Cashin.

How’d ya know that?

Just a guess.

They went around the house. He felt the fear rising in him like nausea.

In there, she said.

The shed was a long way from the house, you had to cross an expanse of overgrown garden, go through an opening in a fence lost beneath rampant potato-creeper. They walked to the gate. Beyond was knee-high grass, pieces of rusted metal sticking out.

What’s inside? Cashin said, looking at a rusted shed of corrugated iron a few metres from the road, a door half open. He felt sweat around his collarbones. He wished he’d let Kendall do this.

Mrs. Haig touched her chin, black spikes like a worn-down hair brush. Stuff, she said. Junk. The old truck. Haven’t bin in there for years. Don’t go in there.

Let the dog out, he said.

Her head jerked, alarmed. Bastard might hurt im, she said.

No, he said. What’s the dog’s name?

Monty, call them all Monty, after Lord Monty of Alamein. Too young, you wouldn’t know.

That’s right, he said. Let Monty out.

And them police dogs? What bloody use are they?

Kept for life-and-death matters, Cashin said, controlling his voice. I’ll be at the door, then you let Lord Monty out.

His mouth was dry, his scalp itched, these things would not have happened before Rai Sarris. He crossed the grassland, went to the left of the door. You learned early to keep your distance from potentially dangerous people, and that included not going into dark sheds to meet them.

Mrs. Haig was at the potato-creeper hedge. He gave her the thumbs-up, his heart thumping.

The small dog came bounding through the grass, all tight muscles and yap, went for the shed, braked, stuck its head in the door and snarled, small body rigid with excitement.

Cashin thumped on the corrugated iron wall with his left hand. Police, he said loudly, glad to be doing something. Get out of there. Now!

Not a long wait.

The dog backed off, shrieking, hysterical, mostly airborne.

A man appeared in the doorway, hesitated, came out carrying a canvas swag. He ignored the dog.

On my way, he said. Just had a sleep. He was in his fifties perhaps, short grey hair, big shoulders, a day’s beard.

Call the dog, Mrs. Haig, Cashin said over his shoulder.

The woman shouted and the dog withdrew, reluctant but obedient.

Trespassing on private property, said Cashin, calmer. He felt no threat from the man.

Yeah, well, just had a sleep.

Put the swag down, Cashin said. Take off your coat.

Says who?

I’m a cop. He showed the fox.

The man folded his bluey, put it down on his swag, at his feet. He wore laced boots, never seen polish, toes dented.

How’d you get here? Cashin said.

Walking. Lifts.

From where?

New South.

New South Wales?

Yeah.

Long way to come.

A way.

Going where?

Just going. My own business where I go.

Free country. Got some ID? Driver’s licence, Medicare card.

No.

No ID?

No.

Don’t make it hard, Cashin said. I haven’t had breakfast. No ID, I take you in for fingerprinting, charge you with trespass, put you in the cells. Could be a while before you see daylight.

The man bent, found a wallet in his coat, took out a folded sheet of paper, offered it.

Put it in the pocket and chuck the coat over.

It landed a metre away.

Back off a bit, Cashin said. He collected the coat, felt it. Nothing. He took out the piece of paper, often folded, worn. He opened it.

Dave Rebb has worked on Boorindi Downs for three years and is a hard worker and no trouble, his good with engines, most mechanic things. Also stock. I would employ him again any time.

It was signed Colin Blandy, manager, and dated 11 August 1996. There was a telephone number.

Where’s this place? said Cashin.

Queensland. Near Winton.

And this is it? This’s your ID? Ten years old?

Yeah.

Cashin found his notebook and wrote down the names and the number, put the paper back in the coat. Scared the lady here, he said. That’s not good.

No sign of life when I come, said the man. Dog didn’t bark.

Been in trouble with the police, Dave?

No. Never been in trouble.

Could be a murderer, said Mrs. Haig behind him. Killer. Dangerous killer.

Me, Mrs. Haig, said Cashin, I’m the policeman, I’m dealing with this. Dave, I’m going to drive you to the main road. Come back this way, you’ll be in serious trouble. Okay?

Okay.

Cashin took the two steps and gave the man back his coat. Let’s go.

Charge him! shouted Mrs. Haig.

In the vehicle, Dave Rebb offered his hands to the dogs, he was a man who knew about dogs. At the T-junction, Cashin pulled over.

Which way you going? he said.

There was a moment. Cromarty.

Drop you at Port Monro, Cashin said. He turned left. At the turnoff to the town, he stopped. They got out and he opened the back for the man’s swag.

Mind how you go now, Cashin said. Need a buck or two?

No, said Rebb. Treated me like a human. Not a lot of that.

Waiting to turn, Cashin watched Rebb go, swag horizontal across his back, sticking out. In the morning mist, he was a stubby-armed cross walking.

No drama?" said Kendall Rogers.

Just a swaggie, said Cashin. You doing unpaid time now?

I woke up early. It’s warmer here, anyway. She fiddled with something on the counter.

Cashin raised the hatch and went to his desk, started on the incident report.

I’m thinking of applying for a transfer, she said.

I can do something about my personal hygiene, Cashin said. I can change.

I don’t need protecting, she said. I’m not a rookie.

Cashin looked up. He’d been expecting this. I’m not protecting you from anything. I wouldn’t protect anybody. You can die for me any time.

A silence.

Yes, well, Kendall said. There are things here to be resolved. Like the pub business. You drive back at ten o’clock at night.

The Caine animals won’t touch me. I’m not going to go to an inquiry and explain why I let you handle it.

Why won’t they touch you?

Because my cousins will kill them. And after that, they’ll be very nasty to them. Is that a satisfactory answer, your honour? He went back to the report but he felt her eyes. What? he said. What?

I’m going to Cindy’s. Ham and egg?

I’ll let you face the savage bitch? On a Friday morning? I’ll go.

She laughed, some of the tension gone.

When she was at the door, Cashin said, Ken, bit more mustard this time? Brave enough to ask her?

He went to the window and watched her go down the street. She had been a gymnast, represented the state at sixteen, won her first gold medal. You would not know it from her walk. In the city, off duty, she went to a club with a friend, a photographer. She was recognised by a youth she had arrested a few months before, an apprentice motor mechanic, a weekend raver, a kicker and a stomper. They were followed, the photographer was badly beaten, locked in his car boot, survived by luck.

Kendall was taken somewhere, treated like a sex doll. After dawn, a man and his dog found her. She had a broken pelvis, a broken arm, six broken ribs, a punctured lung, damaged spleen, pancreas, crushed nose, one cheekbone stoved in, five teeth broken, a dislocated shoulder, massive bruising everywhere.

Cashin returned to the paper work. You could get by without identification, but Rebb had been employed, there might be some tax record. He dialled the number for Boorindi Downs. It rang for a while.

Yeah?

Victoria Police, Detective Cashin, Port Monro. Need to know about someone worked on Boorindi Downs.

Yeah?

Dave Rebb.

When’s that?

From 1994 to 1996.

No, mate, no one here from then. Place belongs to someone else now, they did a clear-out.

What about Colin Blandy?

Blands, oh yeah. I know him from before, he got the bullet from the Greeks, went to WA. Dead, though.

Thanks for your time.

Cashin thought that he had made a mistake, he should have finger-printed Rebb. He had cause to, he had allowed sympathy to dictate.

Could be a murderer, said Mrs. Haig. Killer.

He rang Cromarty, asked for the criminal-investigation man he knew.

Got a feeling, have you? said Dewes. I’ll tell them to keep a lookout.

Cashin sat, hands on the desk. He had threatened Rebb with this, the fingerprinting, the long wait in the cells.

Sandwich, said Kendall. Extra mustard. She put it on with a trowel.

An ordinary shift went by. Near the end, the word came that the first electronic sweep found no David Rebb on any government database in the states and territories. It didn’t mean much. Cashin knew of cases where searches had failed to find people with strings of convictions. He clocked off, drove out to the highway, turned for Cromarty.

Rebb had walked twenty-three kilometres. Cashin pulled in a good way in front of him, got out.

He came on, a man who walked, easy walk, stopped, a tilt of shoulders, the tilted cross.

Dave, I’ve got to fingerprint you, Cashin said.

Told you. Done nothing.

Can’t take your word, Dave. Can’t take anyone’s word. Got to charge you with trespass, Cashin said.

Rebb said nothing.

That’s so we can take your prints.

Don’t lock me up, said Rebb, softly, no tone. Can’t go in the cells.

Cashin heard the fear in the man’s voice and he knew that once he would not have cared much. He hesitated, then he said, Listen, you interested in work? Dairy cows, cow stuff. Do that kind of thing?

Rebb nodded. Long time ago.

Want some work?

Well, open to offers.

And garden stuff, some building work maybe?

Yeah. Done a bit of that, yeah.

Well, there’s work here. My neighbour’s cows, I’m clearing up an old place, might rebuild a bit, thinking of it. Work for a cop?

Worked for every kind of bastard there is.

Thank you. You can sleep at my place tonight. There’s a shed with bunks and a shower. See about the job tomorrow.

They got into the vehicle, Rebb’s swag in the back. This how they get workers around here? he said. Cops recruit them?

All part of the job.

What about the fingerprints?

I’m taking your word you’re clean. That’s pretty dumb, hey?

Rebb was looking out of the window. Saved the taxpayer money, he said.

Cashin woke in the dark, Shane Diab on his mind, the sounds he made dying.

He listened to his aches for a time, tested his spine, his hips, his thighs—they all gave pain. He pushed away the lovely warm burden of the quilts, put feet in the icy waiting boots, and left the room, went down the passage, through Tommy Cashin’s sad ballroom, into the hall, out the front door. It was no colder out than in, today the mist blown away by a strong wind off the ocean.

He pissed from the verandah, onto the weeds. It didn’t bother them. Then he went inside and did his stretching, washed his face, rinsed his mouth, put on overalls, socks, boots.

The dogs knew his noises, they were making throat sounds of impatience at the side door. He let them in and the big creatures snuffled around him, tails swinging.

Thirsty, he went to the fridge and the sight of the frosted beer bottles made him think he could drink a beer. He took out the two-litre bottle of juice, eight fruits it said. Only a dickhead would believe that.

He held the plastic flagon in both hands, took a long drink, a tall glass at least. He took the old oilskin coat off the hook behind the door, picked up the weapon. When he opened the door to the verandah, the dogs pushed through, bounded down the steps, ran for the back gate. They jostled while they watched him come down the path, shrugging into the coat as he walked. Gate open, they ran down the path, side by side, reached the open land and made for the trees, jumping over the big tufts of grass, extravagant leaps, ears floating.

Cashin broke the little over-and-under gun as he walked, felt in his side pockets and found a .22 slug and a .410 shell, fed the mouths. He often had the chance to take a shot at a hare, looked through the V-sight at the beautiful dun creature, its electric ears. He didn’t even think of firing, he loved hares, their intelligence, their playfulness. At a running rabbit, he did take the odd shot. It was just a fairground exercise, a challenge. He always missed—his reaction too slow, the .410’s cone of shot not big enough, too soon dissolved and impotent.

Cashin walked with the little weapon broken over his arm, looking at the trees, dark inside, waiting for the dogs to reach them and send the birds up like tracer fire.

The dogs did a last bound and they were in the trees, triggering the bird-blast, black shrapnel screeching into the sky.

He walked over the hill and down the slope, the dogs ahead, dead black and light-absorbing, heads down, quick legs, coursing, disturbing the leaf mulch. On the levelling ground, on the fringe of the clearing, a hare took off. He watched the three cross the open space, black dogs and hare, the hare pacing itself perfectly, jinking when it felt the dogs near. It seemed to be pulling the dogs on a string. They vanished into the trees above the creek.

Cashin crossed the meadow. The ground was level to the eye but, tramping the long dry grass, you could feel underfoot the rise and fall, the broad furrows a plough had carved. The clearing had once been cultivated, but not in the memory of anyone living. He had no way of knowing whether his ancestor Tommy Cashin had planted a crop there.

It was a fight to get to the creek through the poplars and willows, thousands of suckers gone unchecked for at least thirty years. When he reached the watercourse, a trickle between pools, the dogs appeared, panting. They went straight in, found the deepest places, drank, walked around, drank, walked around, the water eddied weakly around their thin, strong legs, they bit it, raised pointed chins, beards draining water. Poodles liked puddles, didn’t like deep water, didn’t like the sea much. They were paddlers.

Across the creek, they began the sweep to the west, around the hill, on the gentle flank. In the dun grass, he saw the ears of two hares. He whistled up the dogs and pointed to the hares. They followed his arm, ran and put up the pair, which broke together and stayed together, running side by side for ten or fifteen metres, two dogs behind them, an orderly group of four. Then the left hare split, went downhill. His dog split with him. The other dog couldn’t bear it, broke stride, swerved left to join his friend in the pursuit. They went into the long grass, leaping up to look for their prey.

After a while, they came back, pink of tongues visible from a long way, loped ahead again.

Walking, Cashin felt the eyes on him. The dogs running ahead would soon sense the man too, look around, turn left and make for him. He walked and then there were sharp and carrying barks.

The man was out of the trees, the dogs circling him, bouncing. Cashin was unconcerned. He saw the hands the man put out to them, they tried to mouth them, delighted to see their friend. He angled his path to meet Den Millane, nearing eighty but looking as he had at fifty. He would die with a dense head of hair the colour of a gun barrel.

They shook hands. If they didn’t meet for a little while, they shook hands.

Still no decent rain, said Cashin.

Fuckin unnatural, said Millane. Startin to believe in this greenhouse shit. He rubbed a dog head with each hand. Bugger me, never thought I could like a bloody poodle. Seen the women at the Corrigan house?

No.

They both had boundaries with the Corrigan property. Mrs. Corrigan had gone to Queensland after her husband died. No one had lived in the small red-brick house since then. The weather stripped paint from the woodwork, dried out the window putty, panes fell out. The timber outbuildings listed, collapsed, and grass grew over the rotting pieces. He remembered coming for a weekend in summer in the early nineties, hot, he was still with Vickie then, a big piece of roof had gone, blown off. He asked Den Millane to contact Mrs. Corrigan and the roof was fixed, in a fashion. Roofs decided whether empty houses would become ruins.

The Elders bloke brung em, said Den, not looking up. He’s a fat cunt too. The one’s got short hair, bloke hair. Like blokes used to have. Then they come back yesterday, now it’s three girls, walkin around, they walk down the old fence. Fuckin lesbian colony on the move, mate.

Spot lesbians? They have them in your day?

Millane spat. Still my bloody day, mate. Teachers in the main, your lessies. Used to send the clever girls out to buggery, nothin but dickheads there couldn’t read a comic book. Tell you what, I was a girl met those blokes, I’d go lessie. Anyway, point is, you ever looked at your title?

Cashin shook his head.

Creek’s not the boundary.

No?

Your line’s the other side, twenty, thirty yard over the creek. Millane passed a thumb knuckle across his lower lip. Claim the fuckin creek or lose it, mate. Fence that loop or say goodbye.

Well, Cashin said, you’d be mad to buy the place. House needs work, ground’s all uphill.

Millane shook his head. Seen what they’re payin for dirt? Every second dickhead wants to live in the country, drive around in the four-wheel, fuckin up the roads, moanin about the cowshit and the ag chemicals.

No time to read the real estate, Cashin said. Too busy upholding the law. Still need someone to take the cows over to Coghlans?

Yeah. Knee’s gettin worse.

Got someone for you.

There’s a bit of other work, say three days, that’s all up. No place to stay, though.

I’ll bring him over.

Den was watching the dogs investigating a blackberry patch. So when you gonna leave the fancy dogs with me again?

Didn’t like to ask, Cashin said. Bit of a handful.

I can manage the fuckin brutes. Bring em over. Lookin thin, give em a decent feed of bunny.

They said goodbye. When Cashin was fifty metres away, Den shouted, Ya keep what’s bloody yours. Hear me.

The call came at 8:10 a.m., relayed from Cromarty. Cashin was almost at the Port Monro intersection. As he drove along the coast highway, he saw the ambulance coming towards him. He slowed to let them reach the turnoff first, followed them up the hill, around the bends and through the gates of The Heights, parked on the forecourt.

A woman was standing on the gravel, well away from the big house, smoking a cigarette. She threw it away and led the paramedics up the stairs into the house. Cashin followed, across an entrance hall and into a big, high-ceilinged room. There was a faint sour smell in the air.

The old man was lying on his stomach before the massive fireplace, head on the stone hearth. He was wearing only pyjama pants, and his thin naked back was covered with dried blood through which could be seen dark horizontal lines. There was blood pooled on the stones and soaked into the carpet. It was black in the light from a high uncurtained window.

The two medics went to him, knelt. The woman put her gloved hands on his head, lifted it gently. Significant open head injury, possible brain herniation, she said, talking to her companion and into a throat mike.

She checked the man’s breathing, an eye, held up his forearm. Suspected herniation, she said. Four normal saline, hyperventilate a hundred per cent, intubation indicated, one hundred mils lidocaine.

Her partner set up the oxygen. He got in the way and Cashin couldn’t see what was happening.

After a while, the female medic said, Three on coma scale. Chopper, Dave.

The man took out a mobile phone.

The door was open, said the woman who had been waiting on the steps. She was behind Cashin. I only went in a step, backed off, thought he was dead, I wanted to run, get in the car and get out of here. Then I thought, oh shit, he might be alive, and I came back and I saw he was breathing.

Cashin looked around the room. In front of a door in the left corner, a rug on the polished floorboards was rucked. What’s through there? he said, pointing.

Passage to the south wing.

A big painting dominated the west wall, a dark landscape seen from a height. It had been slashed at the bottom, where a flap of canvas hung down.

He must have gone to bed early, didn’t use even half the wood Starkey’s boy brought in, she said.

See anything else?

His watch’s not on the table. It’s always there with the whisky glass on the table next to the leather chair. He had a few whiskies every night.

He took his watch off?

Yeah. Left it on the table every night.

Let’s talk somewhere else, Cashin said. These people are busy.

He followed her across a marble-floored foyer to a passage around a gravelled courtyard and into a kitchen big enough for a hotel. What did you do when you got here? he said.

I just put my bag down and went through. Do that every day.

I’ll need to take a look in the bag. Your name is…?

Carol Gehrig. She was in her forties, pretty, with blonded hair, lines around her mouth. There were lots of Gehrigs in the area.

She fetched a big yellow cloth bag from a table at the far end of the room, unzipped it. You want to dig around?

No.

She tipped the contents onto the table: a purse, two sets of keys, a glasses case, makeup, tissues, other innocent things.

Thanks, Cashin said. Touch anything in there?

No. I just put the bag down, went to the sitting room to fetch the whisky glass. Then I rang. From outside.

Now they went outside. Cashin’s mobile rang.

Hopgood. What’s happening? He was the criminal-investigation unit boss in Cromarty.

Charles Bourgoyne’s been bashed, he said. Badly. Medics working on him.

I’ll be there in a few minutes. No one touches anything, no one leaves, okay?

Gee, Cashin said. I was going to send everyone home, get everything nice and clean for Forensic.

Don’t be clever, said Hopgood. Not a fucking joking matter this.

Carol Gehrig was sitting on the second of the four broad stone steps that led to the front door. Cashin took the clipboard and went to sit beside her. Beyond the gravel expanse and the box hedges, a row of tall pencil pines was moving in the wind, swaying in unison like a chorus line of fat-bellied dancers. He had driven past this house hundreds of times and never seen more than the tall, ornate chimneys, sections of the red pantiled roof. The brass plate on a gate pillar said The Heights, but the locals called it Bourgoyne’s.

I’m Joe Cashin, he said. You’d be related to Barry Gehrig.

My cousin.

Cashin remembered his fight with Barry Gehrig in primary school. He was nine or ten. Barry won that one, he made amends later. He sat on Barry’s shoulders and ground his pale face into the playground dirt.

What happened to him?

Dead, she said. "Drove his truck off a bridge thing near Benalla.

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