Death Crop

By Allen Robson

A man has been murdered in the normally peaceful preserves of the upper Hunter Valley of New south Wales, north of Sydney. The victim is a member of one of the wealthiest farming dynasties in the state, and his broken and battered body lies in the grounds of the family estate. Inspector Mike Blakely arrives from Hunter District Headquarters in Newcastle to investigate, a fact not greatly appreciated by some of the locals. Predominant among these is the local police chief, a man with whom Blakely is forced to resume what has always been a rather rocky relationship.

As soon as Blakely opens inquiries suspects begin to appear, but this doesn't mean the case will be easy to solve. On the contrary, as it proceeds and information is gathered, it seems to become more and more impenetrable. Then as it begins to spin out of control, Blakely can't help wondering whether he's looking at things the right way or whether something else is at play here. Something deep and dark; something that is reaching out for Blakley as well, threatening to drag him down, pulling him into one of the most dangerous cases he has ever known. ... Murder awaits!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Allen Robson
• Release date: Feb 2, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301989164

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Death Crop

Allen Robson

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Copyright 2012 Allen Robson

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Chapter 1

The year was 1957, the month was April. It was nine o’clock on a fine Monday morning, and Ben Foreman was piloting the big dark blue Plymouth police sedan along a smooth black ribbon of tarmac that almost seemed to shimmer in the heat haze that was already beginning to rise from the ground. Foreman, a detective sergeant from Hunter District Serious Crime Headquarters in Newcastle, had started out from that city about an hour and forty minutes ago and was now in the upper Hunter Valley, about six miles southwest of the town of Scone. He was fond driving and ordinarily would have been enjoying his trip. Ordinarily he would have, that is, but not this time. And the reason for that was the man sitting to his left in the Plymouth’s wide front seat. Inspector Mike Blakely, Foreman’s senior officer and boss, happened to be in one of his black moods. That meant he was depressed, angry, ready to bite people’s heads off at the drop of a hat, and since Foreman’s had been the only head available to him for the better part of two hours, that was the head that bore the tooth marks.

‘I don’t know,’ the sergeant said, turning briefly to give his inspector a quick, angry glare. ‘Someday I might just haul off and land you with the biggest left hook I can manage!’

Blakely glanced at him, scowled, ‘Come off it,’ he said. ‘You wouldn’t try anything with me. You know what would happen if you did.’

And that had nothing to with being put on report; nothing to do being hauled over the coals for striking a superior officer. It had to do with the fact that the thirty seven year old, sandy haired detective sitting so grumpily in the passenger seat, despite his rather meagre five foot eight inches of height and medium build, was a genuine two fisted hard-man and everyone who worked with him knew it.

‘Oh, I know,’ the frustrated sergeant said resignedly. ‘But if it meant getting just one really good one in first, I sometimes think it would be worth it. … Where do you get off, anyway, criticizing the way I vote? I’ll vote any way I damn well please, thank you very much, and I don’t expect to be taken to task for it.’

‘Yes,’ Blakely said grouchily, ‘but the Democratic Labor Party? Surely you can do better than that. That lot are nothing but a bunch of bible bashing old reactionaries, who delight in helping to keep the real Labor Party out of power.’

‘Don’t keep calling them that,’ Foreman snapped. ‘They’re not bible bashers! They’re men of God. Good Catholic men of God, for the most part.’ Foreman was of that particular faith himself and took his religion seriously. ‘And they don’t like the way the godless communists have been infiltrating the Labor Party recently. Infiltrating Labor Party and infiltrating the unions.’

‘That’s a load of rubbish,’ Blakely growled. ‘The communists aren’t getting too strong in the Labor Party.’

‘Of course they are,’ Foreman retorted, now really beginning to get worked up. ‘What about Doc. Evatt? Answer me that one, if you can.’

That one had Blakely frowning in confusion. ‘What are you talking about?’ he asked. ‘What about Doc Evatt?’

‘Oh, give me a break. You must know that Evatt is as near as nothing to a communist himself. As near as nothing and he’s the leader of the A.L.P. That’s why the D.L.P. people broke away in the first place. The communists are getting to strong, and Evatt hasn’t the slightest intention of ever trying to do anything about it. He likes them.’

‘And in the meantime,’ Blakely shot back, ‘a lot of downtrodden working class people who vote for a party with labour in its title, wind up handing their votes to the conservatives.’

‘It’s better than handing them to the communists,’ Foreman retorted heatedly. ‘Don’t worry about us D.L.P voters; we know what we’re doing.’

‘Oh, I give up!’ Blakely threw up his arms in exasperation, muttered something under his breath and turned to stare sullenly out the window on his side of the car.

Foreman, on the other hand, for the first time of the morning was wearing the beginnings of a grin. He was chalking that one up as a win, and was pleased to be finally getting some of his own back.

It wasn’t long before Roxbury Hall, the house for which the two men were bound, came into view.

‘Jeez!’ Foreman exclaimed, staring wide eyed through the windshield as he approached. ‘Is that a house or something that royalty uses to loll about in?’

Blakely turned to see what his colleague was looking at. ‘My God!’ he said, sounding just as impressed as his colleague. ‘You’re right, it’s enormous. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a private residence that was bigger.’

‘Me either.’

The tarmac of the private access road on which the pair had been travelling for the past twenty minutes suddenly terminated and became the gravelled surface of a long tree lined drive. Foreman slowed and continued along it, gawping up at the great sandstone mansion, looming ever closer as he drove.

‘Some serious money here,’ he said.

‘Very serious,’ Blakely agreed.’

The two men needed the rear grounds so Foreman kept to the left of the great gravel sweep and continued on along the drive. He went along the side of the enormous abode, both he and Blakely awed at what they were seeing, until, right in front of him, was the objective that he and Blakely sought. A body stretched on the gravel just out from the rightmost door of a large white stuccoed structure that may once have been a coach house but must now be used to house cars. Men of the local police contingent, two of them, stood beside the body looking down at it. A third was some distance off to the right on the glittering lawn that looked about as green and lush as grass could be persuaded to grow. Of the two men near the victim one was a big bull of a man with rust coloured hair and a great round rubicund face. Foreman had only ever met him once before, but Blakely knew him well.

‘That’s him, isn’t it?’ said Foreman. ‘Big as a mountain and the colour of iron ore.’

‘That’s him,’ Blakely confirmed. ‘Chief Inspector Ted Tarrant. And a more thoroughgoing bastard you wouldn’t find on the entire New South Wales Police Force.’

Foreman turned wryly to his passenger, frowned. ‘You reckon?’ he said on ironic note. ‘I don’t think it’d take me long to come up with a name to give him a run for his money.’

Blakely scowled, Foreman brought the Plymouth to a halt on the gravel, right beside the black and white Holden that Tarrant and his men had evidently come in.

As soon as the newcomers were out of their car, Tarrant glared at them.

‘Woner’ful,’ he said in that shockingly enunciated manner of speech that Blakely so well remembered. ‘The heroes from ’eadquarters have arrived, ’ave they? The blokes what can do all the many things that us lot up ’ere are way too stupid ta do.’

Blakely grimaced. Handling Ted Tarrant was a chore at the best of times. Feeling the way did now, it loomed as a near impossibility.

‘Suck on it, Ted,’ he growled, totally convinced he was keeping a lid on the very worst of his temper. ‘It’s not as if you didn’t know we were coming so why the big song and dance?’

‘Speak to all your superior officers like that, do ya, Blakely? I do outrank ya, you know? And yeah, I did know you was comin’, and don’t think I didn’t ask ’em ta send someone else. Anyone would’a done. Long as it wasn’t you.’

‘Tough luck, Ted. You can always put in a complaint.’

‘If I thought it’d do any good, Blakely, I’d be headin’ for a goddamn’ phone quicker ’n the eye could see.’

Blakely and Foreman reached the victim and looked down at him. He was no pretty sight. He lay face down on the gravel with his head bashed in. Dark congealed blood matted his hair, a thick trail of it tracking down the left side of his face. There was a hideous sort of reverse halo effect on the gravel beneath him, almost completely encircling his head. There was blood spatter on the green and white door in front of him, nothing on the two matching ones to its left. Blakely sighed. No matter how he was feeling, no matter what was going on around him, this was the point at which he got serious. He looked up at Tarrant.

‘All right,’ he said, ‘you’d better fill us in on what you know of this.’ He and Foreman knew that the man’s name was William Macleod and that he was a member of one the richest farming families in the state, but that was about it.

Ted Tarrant’s atrocious speech was not his only trade mark. He had another and it was on display at the moment. He was patting down his big red face and his huge neck and throat with an enormous white handkerchief. … Monogrammed, of course.

‘The vic’s name is Macleod,’ he said, which wasn’t adding at all to the extent men from headquarters’ knowledge, ‘and I can tell ya that he’s bloody rich,’ which also wasn’t adding to their knowledge.

‘Really?’ Blakely said with a good deal more sardonic impatience than was probably justified. ‘You don’t mean to say so, Ted. By the look of that miserable little hovel Ben and I just drove past, I thought we’d be dealing here with someone who didn’t have two coins to rub together.’

Tarrant let out a low, rumbling growl. ‘Jeez, Blakely,’ he said, ‘is it any wonder I’m always so all fired glad ta see ya? You’re such pleasant goddamn’ company. Do ya wanna hear what I can tell ya or not?’

Blakely wasn’t exactly chastened, but that did get through to him a little. ‘Yes, Ted,’ he said, ‘I do. Carry on.’

‘All right, then. Well, he’s twenty-nine years of age and ’e’s the boss bleedin’ Macleod. He owns most of the shares—’

‘Twenty-nine? That’s young to be boss.’

‘—in the company. Yeah, well, the old fella kicked the bucket recently and this one inherited most of what was goin’.’

‘By old fella you mean his father?’

Now it was Tarrant’s turn to unnecessarily pour on the scorn. ‘A’ course I mean ’is bleedin’ father, Blakely, wassamadder with ya? Who the beedin’ hell else would I be talkin’ about?’

It could have been a grandfather, an uncle without progeny of his own. It could have a lot of things. Blakely didn’t bother to point this out, he just let Tarrant get on with his briefing.

‘Any’ow,’ he the big man went on, pointing down at the victim, ‘this fella was found at six thirty this mornin’ by his sister. She’s an early riser, she tells me, and she was on ’er way to feed the dogs. Spaniels they are. Prize ones; some of ’em worth more’n the department pays you and me in half a year. ’

The dogs were evidently in the white painted buildings some distance away to the south; beyond the flawlessly maintained hedge which seemed to mark the boundary of the mansion’s garden area. A few little canine sounds were emanating from there now; the odd bark, the odd yelp, the odd little whine.

‘The Doc’s been and gone,’ Tarrant said, getting back to his description, ‘but the fingerprint men and the photographer haven’t arrived yet. They’ve gotta come up from Muswellbrook but I was expectin’ ’em an hour or more ago. I got no idea what’s keepin’ ’em.’

‘What time did you and your boys get here?’ Blakely asked.

‘Just before seven thirty.’ Tarrant scratched his great rusty head. ‘I was only just out’a bed when the call came through, so I threw on some clothes and set off. I picked up Phil, ’ere,’ pointing at the man beside him, ‘on the way in ta Scone. Al was at the stationhouse waitin’ for us, and we picked up young Colinson on the way out.’ He paused a moment, thought a bit, then said, ‘Where was I? … Oh, yeah, the Doc. Well, ’e puts the time of death at somewhere between eleven last night and two this mornin’.’ He pointed behind him, over to where the third Scone man now stood, bending over examining something on the lawn—something that looked very much like the murder weapon to Blakely. The man looking at it would have to be the one called Al, Blakely decided, for there was no way he could be described as young. ‘Young Colinson’ was probably in the house, keeping an eye on the people in there.

Rather superfluously, Tarrant said, ‘That’s the murder weapon that Al’s lookin’ at.’ It appeared to be a length wood; a length of two-by-three about three feet long, as far as Blakely could tell, with plenty of blood on it. ‘He’s been looking at the damn thing on and off all mornin’,’ Tarrant went on. ‘Don’t ask me what ’e finds so goddamn’ facinatin’ about it.’

Tarrant’s subordinate chimed in, ‘It probably came from down beside the kennels,’ he said. ‘There’s a nice little pile of them stacked up down there. Everything your friendly neighbourhood killer could want. He probably threw it over there when he was finished with it.’

Tarrant was glaring at him. ‘Shut up, Phil,’ he rumbled. ‘I’m the one does the talkin’ round ’ere. How many times do I ’ave ta tell ya that?’

Phil took a sudden and very deep interest in the shiny black toes of his shoes. ‘Yeah, well,’ Tarrant went on when he was finally through with glaring at his offsider. ‘All of what Phil said is possible, I suppose.’

Blakely wondered why he’d bothered with the reprimand. ‘Okay,’ he said, still thinking about that and shaking his head. ‘So he threw it over there after the victim was dead and then what? Did he simply walk back in to the house?’

Tarrant’s eyebrows rose. ‘Ya think it might’a been an inside job?’ he rumbled.

Blakely groaned. ‘Jeez Ted, there’d have to be a pretty fair chance of it, wouldn’t you think? After all, the murder was committed right here, and when did we stop looking at family members in murder cases?’

Once again Tarrant was glaring, but not at his offsider this time, at Blakely. ‘All right,’ he said in his vocally supercharged, gravelly voice. ‘No need ta take on about it. All I’m sayin’ is that the killer didn’t have ta ’ave come from here. And neither, for that matter, did the murder weapon.’

Both of those were possible too, but Blakely made no acknowledgement of the fact. He looked instead at the blood stained door and then back to the house.

‘It’s a good way from here to the house,’ he said. ‘There’d have to be a fair bit of noise made for anyone inside to hear the murder from there.’

‘I’d say so,’ Tarrant said, nodding agreement.

Blakely moved towards the garage door. It was wooden, of the hinged variety that opened upwards and outwards and then inwards again to slide in under the roof when fully opened. It was almost closed but not quite. There was a distance of about three inches left for it to travel before its lower edge lined up with the floor and the locking mechanism engaged. The blood spatter marred it in comparison to its fellows.

Blakely pointed to it, turned back to Tarrant.

‘Is his car inside?’

‘It is.’

‘So what’s the theory, then? That he was attacked while opening or closing the door?’

‘He’d have to ’ave been closin’ it,’ Tarrant said. ‘He was out on business yesterday and didn’t get back until late last night. The killer must’a been waiting for ’im. He’s let the vic drive his car inta the garage, and got ’im when ’e came back out again.’

With that, the two men from headquarters moved towards the corner of the garage. There was a two and a half foot wide extension of its front wall that turned out, once the detectives had got around and had a look at it, to be no more a few inches thick. Its purpose, at least as far as Blakely could see, would be nothing but architectural embellishment.

‘Waiting and hiding,’ he said as he examined it. But if anyone had been standing behind this last night, there were no obvious signs of that now.

Blakely sighed, turned to Foreman. ‘Maybe there will be prints.’

Foreman shrugged. ‘Don’t get your hopes up,’ he said, ‘we’ll need to be lucky.’

Wonderful, just what Blakely needed; vigorous, unbounded optimism from his colleague. They moved back to Tarrant, and it was Foreman who posed the next question. ‘Is everything still as it was when the body was discovered,’ he asked.

Tarrant nodded. ‘Accordin’ ta the sister it is, yeah. She says she never touched anythin’ except her brother. Feelin’ for a pulse, like. But as soon as ’er hand came inta contact with his skin, she knew it was all over for ’im, and she jumped up screamin’ and ran back ta the ’ouse like a cat with its arse on fire.’

Blakely winced. ‘Really, Ted? She said that, did she? Like a cat with its arse on fire?’

‘No, Blakely, she didn’t say that. I said that. My little embellishment is all that is. Blakely shook his head. ‘Why am I not surprised?’ he groaned.

Tarrant’s already ruddy face was turning several shades brighter than its normal hue. ‘Jeez, Blakely!’ he bellowed. ‘Do you ’ave any idea how glad I am not ta have deal with you on a permanent basis?’

Blakely nodded. ‘About half as glad as I am not to have deal with you permanently.’ He paused a moment, looked about for a bit, then said, ‘All right, so the sister ran back to the house. Then what? Did anybody else come down for a look?’ ‘All of them,’ Tarrant said, his face slowly returning to its customary orange and bronze.

Blakely sighed. ‘All of them! And how many would that be?’

Tarrant shrugged. ‘Not esac’ly sure. About eight or ten, I’d say. That’s includin’ the servants.’

‘Did any of them touch him?’

‘Apart from the sister? …Only the uncle. And then only, so ta satisfy ’imself that his nephew was dead. Leastwise that’s what ’e says.’

Blakely glanced about. ‘Have you had a look round, yet?’ he asked.

Tarrant stared at him, his colour once more on the rise. ‘Course we’ve ’ad a look round, Blakely! Whaddaya think we are up ’ere? A bunch’a brain dead bloody morons or somethin’?’

Blakely grinned at him, said nothing. But he did not think that Tarrant was a moron. He believed he was somewhat derelict in his duty, perhaps; a lot more incoherent and uncouth than he needed to be, and a rolled gold, grade A pain in the arse. But a moron? Not by a long shot.

‘We didn’t find much in the way of evidence,’ Tarrant went on, still sounding seriously peeved.’ Only this.’ He reached into his right-hand pants pocket, pulled out a small plastic evidence bag and waved it under Blakely’s nose. Inside was a small pink button. A very ordinary button by the look of it, of the type used on articles of clothing. Women’s clothing if its colour and pattern could be relied upon.

‘Where did you find it?’ Blakely asked.

‘Just over ’ere,’ Tarrant moved a few paces to his left and back a bit. He stood where the gravel of the drive met the smooth manicured surface of the lawn and pointed down. ‘Just in here. Standin’ on its end in the groove between the gravel and the grass.’

Blakely nodded. ‘And nobody from the house noticed it when they all came down this morning?’

Tarrant grinned. ‘Doesn’t bloody look like it, Blakely, does it?’

Blakely winced. It was, after all, a pretty dumb question. ‘Do you know whose it is?’ he asked.

‘Yeah. It belongs to the ’ousekeeper.’

‘Who? The housekeeper, you mean?’

‘Yeah, Blakely, the ’ouskeeper. That’s what I said. Somethin’ wrong with yer friggin’ ears? … Anyway, she admitted it was hers readily enough, although she prob’ly wasn’t in much of a position ta deny it. Not with other people about when I asked who could prob’ly identify it as ’ers. It’s from one of ’er cardigans, she tells me.’ He glanced at Blakely again, then back at button. ‘She says she lost it on Saturday; says it was on ’er cardigan when she put it on in the mornin’. Then, when she noticed it missin’, she ’ad a quick look round some of the places she’d been but couldn’t find it, so she went up to her room an’ sewed on a spare.’

Blakely frowned. ‘Maybe she didn’t lose it on Saturday,’ he said. ‘Maybe she lost it some other time.’

Tarrant grinned. ‘Some other time like late last night, ya mean? While she was bashin’ ’er boss ta death with a lump o’ two-be-three?’

‘Maybe. Can anyone back up her claim of losing it on Saturday?’ Tarrant was working his face, neck and throat with his big white kerchief again. ‘Not as far as I know. She says she didn’t say nothin’ about it when she noticed it missin’; just had ’er quick look round, then went up to ’er room and sewed on the new one.’

‘Wonderful!’ Blakely said frustratedly. ‘Evidence explained away with no confirmation up, but please believe me because I’d never lie.’

Foreman turned to him. ‘Well, it’s not as if it’s a problem we didn’t know we were likely to be faced with,’ he said. ‘If the murderer came from the house, any traces left at the scene could be claimed to have been left at any time.’

‘Blakely turned back to Tarrant. ‘Did you find out if she had any ideas on how the button came to be here?’ he asked.

‘I did. She said she went inta town Sat’day mornin’ in the car with the victim’s sister. She had ta pick up some cleanin’ supplies or somethin’ and the sister,—Julie ’er name is—had somethin’ ta do in there as well. That’s all backed up by the sister, by the way, so if the housekeeper’s lyin’, then so is she. But the sister don’t know nothin’ about the button. The ’ousekeeper says it musta come off after she came outa the garage. Prob’ly helped by the weight’a the box she was carrying. The victim’s sister confirms that too, by the way. That she was carryin’ a heavy box and wearin’ a pink cardigan, that is; not that the button came off.’

Blakely turned to the garage, asked which door she came out of.

‘The second one along,’ Tarrant told him. ‘The one next to the blood stained one. That’s the sister’s regular spot. They all ’ave their regular spots. The ’ousekeeper’s got a car too; a little green Ford Prefect about seven or eight years old, but it’s round in the carport be’ind the garage.’

Blakely nodded. ‘There was no sign of any strange vehicle being here last night?’ he asked.

Tarrant sighed. ‘Jeez, Blakely,’ he growled, ‘how the hell could ya tell? There are more vehicles comin’ and goin’ ’ere than at on General Motors production line. There are six in the garage, three more in the carport be’ind it, and God knows ’ow many others come and go each day. Phil an’ me had a good look along the north road there.’ He pointed to it. Actually it was northeast but north was near enough for Tarrant. ‘As ya can see it’s surfaced, but we weren’t lookin’ for tracks. We were lookin’ for somethin’ that might be pers’nal. Somethin’ that could be identified as belongin’ to one specific individual. Even if it was only the butt of a distinctive cigarette or cigar. We’d still have the problem of when it was left, o’ course, but we didn’ find nothin’, so it’s all academic any’ow.’

‘How far did you go?’