Corriedale

By Murray Cameron

Corriedale is book 2 of the two-volume Calm Crescendo, with Mighty Oaks being the first.

Roddy Mckenzie had just arrived home at Corriedale, the tall house built of local stone that gazes over the Indian Ocean at Cottesloe, Western Australia. The doorbell rang to announce the unexpected arrival of Inspector Colin Nicol from the Unsolved Crime Squad of London Metropolitan Policethe Yard. He claimed to be retired and spent a short time affably enjoying Roddys hospitality. Then he issued the threatening news. He was working on a casethe murder of a London lawyer, Bartolemeusz. His prime suspects were Erik Barron and Roddy Mckenzie. They must plan and take action to overcome this threat.

Jessica, Roddys wife, and Helen, her daughter, will be facing an academically demanding year when their summer vacation is over. As part of his plan to confront Nicol, Roddy and the family travel to Scotland and England and visit Roddys mother again; and in England, Roddy Jessica and Helen join a group of guests at Ranelagh, the Hampshire estate of Hugh and Miette Verney where Roddy had spent his halcyon days after he and Erik had served together in the Battle of Hill 365 in the Korean War.

Inspector Nicol had been given cause for deep thought and personal examination of his values. His investigation had brought about a reaction from MI6 and the Foreign Office. He travels to Africa to talk with the inspector who first handled the Bartolemeusz case and with Erik Barron on the model mining venture he has created at Lubumbashi.

After the resolution of the murder case, the lives of Jessica, Helen, Roddy, and Jane go on in satisfying achievement and personal development among many good friends. Then tragedy strikes. Jessica is killed in a horrifying road accident. Roddy is heartbroken. Helen is resilient but fears for her dads happiness. He needs someone to fill the painful emotional gap. She brings about the happy marriage of Jane and Roddy. Tragedy strikes again when Roddy suffers a brief but fatal illness.

Jane and Helen, their grieving having found an end, live on at the old memory-filled Corriedale in the Mackenzies Calm Crescendo.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Aug 16, 2018
• ISBN: 9781543407884

Murray Cameron

Murray Cameron was born in the Scottish Highlands and was drafted into the British army to serve in a highland regiment after which he went to India as a tea planter but left there to settle in Australia choosing as an orientation to his new world to become a station hand which choice, he says, he has never regretted He went to University to study psychology and linguists after which he took up a career in Trainer Training and People Development. At sixty seven with deteriorating hearing, he retired. Drawn to university again in 2011 he graduated in 2014 with BA in History and was invited to appy for entry to the Honours Program. Because his hearing was further deteriorating, he declined the offer and now lives a writers life in South Fremantle, Western Australia.

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Copyright © 2018 by Murray Cameron.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2018903879

ISBN:                Hardcover              978-1-5434-0790-7

                          Softcover                 978-1-5434-0789-1

                          eBook                     978-1-5434-0788-4

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Nicole Steenhoff created the original oil on canvas work specifically as a cover for the book Corriedale. She reserves all rights to the use of this work for any purpose.

Nicole. [e-mail]

Rev. date: 08/14/2018

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A Welcome and an Introduction to the Readers of Corriedale

T his is being written for those new readers who have not yet read And Mighty Oaks …

And Mighty Oaks … took readers through the lives of the Mckenzie family to the point where Roddy Mckenzie, from the paltry pittance of a compulsory National Service British soldier’s pay, had built from that little acorn the vigorous, profitable enterprises of Mckenzie Earthmoving and Ugojim (Aust.) Pty Ltd. Jessica, Roddy’s wife, mother of Helen, is a Master of Arts and Doctor of Music. Her career as a violinist began with the Scottish Symphony Orchestra, then with Europa Chamber Orchestra and now she holds a teaching position in the music department of the University of Western Australia. Helen is about to enter her upper school years in Presbyterian Ladies College at Cottesloe. Life has been a joyful progress of endeavour, success, and love.

Now, into this idyll comes Inspector Colin Nicol. Semi-retired, he has joined the Unsolved Crime and Open Case Squad of the London Metropolitan police. He calls upon Roddy at Corriedale. At first amiable and sociable, he is about to return to England after two days in Western Australia. He dines with Roddy, who the next day takes him to the airport for departure. Before boarding his plane, he delivers a threat. The case to which he seeks a solution is the murder thirteen years before of Bartolemeusz, a London lawyer. Major Erik Barron, Roddy’s company commander in Korea, 8 Commando in Katanga, and coordinator of the daring and successful Heist, the hostage release assault in North Lebanon, is Nicol’s prime suspect. And Roddy is a suspected accomplice. Roddy has warned Erik. What action will Erik and Roddy take?

We shall soon see. Corriedale will tell the story.

Selections from the Cast of Characters for And Mighty Oaks … and Corriedale

R oderick Fraser Mckenzie successfully completed his secondary education at St Ninian’s Academy in Fearnas, a small fishing and agriculture town in the shire of Fearnas in the highlands of Scotland. Every fit male of eighteen years had, by law, to serve for two years in one of the armed forces under threat of imprisonment for evasion. Roddy was drafted into the 43 rd Royal Highland Regiment. He fought in Korea was wounded and mentioned in dispatches. He migrated to Australia, where he found work and learned to operate heavy earth-moving plant in the Snowy Mountains Hydro Electricity Scheme, New South Wales.

Jessica Innes attended St Ninian’s Academy and Aberdeen University, where she achieved Master of Arts in Music magna cum laude, and continued to a Doctorate of Music from St Andrew’s University through the Scottish Royal Academy of Music. Helen Mckenzie is her daughter fathered by the internationally acclaimed French oboist, director of the Europa Chamber Orchestra, Michel de Lattre de Sassigny.

Erik Barron, born into a fisher family in the fisher town of Fearnas, first known there around 1600 AD, was educated at Gordonstoun College, Morayshire and Royal Military College, Sandhurst. He was a young officer in a Chindit column in Burma WW2 and company commander of 43 Highland in Korea and Kenya. When he retired, he studied history and politics at St Andrew’s University. Through the registration of mining claims in Katanga, he set up Stag’s Head copper, lead, and zinc mining at a site near Lubumbashi.

Simon ‘Templar’ Fraser was a young man, a penniless, drunken derelict recruited by Roddy when he and surveyor ‘Howie’ Treloar were working on a project at Marble Bar in the rugged north of Western Australia. Simon transformed amazingly soon into a devoted, hard-working, inventive employee, adhesively loyal to Roddy Mckenzie. Through conscientious study and application, he graduated with distinction from the University of Western Australia. He was essential to the success of Mckenzie Earthmoving and Ugojim.

Madge Gill (husband Peter) began as Roddy’s office-administrative support person just days after Roddy began to establish Mckenzie Earth Moving. Madge has unbounded admiration for Roddy and adoration for Jess and Helen.

Jane Dugal is the daughter of the now-deceased Col. Ronald Dugal, laird of Woodend Estate in Fearnas. Sandy Mckenzie, Roddy’s father, became the colonel’s gardener after they had served together with 43 Highland on the Somme in France during WWI. She and Roddy played together when they were small children before Jane went to a private primary school. She later attended a private ladies’ college in Edinburgh and studied mathematics at Edinburgh University. She became a mathematics teacher at a prestigious girls’ school in Hampshire. Jane meets Roddy again at a party when he has graduated from officer training and is serving in a reserve battalion of the Hampshire Regiment. She falls in love with Roddy. Roddy has a clear realisation of the difficulties, confirmed by experience, of attempting to cross caste lines. Besides, Roddy has still to work out a plan for his future. Roddy leaves for Australia to further his plans.

Seeking an antidote for disgust and disillusionment after discovering that for five years her husband had been living a double life with a homosexual partner in a nearby village, Jane responds to an advertisement in a teachers’ journal for a higher mathematics teacher in Methodists Ladies College in Claremont (a suburb of Perth), Western Australia.

The tall lissom blonde Eve Arden is Erik Barron’s anchor for Stag’s Head Resources in London. Intelligent, efficient, charming Eve lives in an apartment in Kensington and, on the weekends, plays first-class tennis.

Jeudi Merseault, daughter of French parents who took up residence in Lambeth, London, played viola with Europa Chamber Orchestra, a very close friend of Jessica, now lives in Glasgow and is in the Scottish National Orchestra. She is very shrewd and worldly wise. She made an acute analysis of Michel and warned Jessica of the danger of her infatuation with him.

Corriedale,

Book Two of Calm Crescendo

T he major task the next day was to attend a meeting with Leighton, the major contractor for the construction of a separate international air terminal for Perth. Mckenzie had been contracted for a portion of the work, and this meeting was to inform each of the minor contractors what their specific roles would be and the person who would be the reference point for each particular contractor. Rod chose Dave to come with him because he would have to be in tune with the entire concept of Leighton’s plans, and Roddy knew that although Dave had decided to keep to the furrow of his operator role, he was not incapable of grasping a broader view of things and picking up the meanings of the words of engineers and planners and understanding what they were saying and how that could be interpreted by action on the ground. At Ugojim and Mckenzie , Roddy had been preparing everyone for his pending absence. In every position, there was a person committed to his or her job, and each one wished the Mckenzies to go away and enjoy themselves visiting their families—and specifically for Roddy, more joy, a real holiday, a change from simply a sail to Bunbury and back, or even the Cape Leeuwin or Geraldton yacht races. The most important time before leaving was to be spent with Simon, who had inhaled the spirit of what was becoming very quickly a major corporation and whom Roddy had appointed to be in total control in his absence. Madge, in charge of all administration, was sound and sure. He set off on his next rather special project, knowing that much had been achieved that morning. The very special project was to collect Jess and Helen from the Rottnest Island ferry.

What Roddy saw when he had parked at the East Street Jetty was a sight that epitomised summer in the West Australian harbour city of Fremantle. The myriad sound, visual, colour, and activity elements combined to create a gestalt, a wholeness which had to be reacted to that way for its full meaning to be felt. Most significant of all was mood, almost palpable, a super-factor giving the inanimate elements a life and a spirit to workers and watchers and holidaymakers as they moved within the scene. The river ebbed quickly but smoothly, here dark, there dazzling bright, now streaked white whisked by the beating propellers of passing small craft. The crowd was flashing pixels, brush-point figures from a mixed palette, scattered carelessly over the ferry and the quay as if from a child’s cardboard toy kaleidoscope. The stout jarrah posts which boasted their strength had suffered wind, weather, and sea salt air for many a year, losing their natural rich red to a washed-out umber. The rich red haematite of the huge, heavy cast-iron mooring cleats now stood out where they were anchored in structural beams painted white, white, white. Over all, to give this picture brilliance was an arching cerulean sky. And to prove that perfection is possible, a very light sou’wester was gently cooling the hot summer air.

East Street Jetty on the Swan River at East Fremantle is the first disembarkation point for Rottnest Island holidaymakers. They jumble and tumble down off the ferry by the crowded gangways radiating stored sunshine, on their tanned pelts, sparkling sticking silica. The glaring bright colours of their minimal clothing seemed to match with colour the strident pitch of their calls to people on shore. Amidst the noise and laughter of jostling arrivals on the jetty, people spot their friends, relatives, children; some draped in towels, some still in swim suits, most males clutching the essential eskies, which having kept their beer, soft drinks—and some water—cool at all hours and days of their island sojourn, are filled now with fresh fish and rock lobster. The friends bustle forward to help with the hand-carried items like tennis racquets, beach balls, and light little Styrofoam surfboards. At the same time, heavy bags are being landed lowered from on-board davits worked by the ferry crew.

It was easy for Roddy to pick out, from the thick of the throng, his beautiful, jolly girls and the mums and children of the families who had shared the holiday. He and the other dads standing on the hard waved to their returning broods.

The bigger baggage was now on the jetty, and all the trippers were ashore. The sliding rail on the ferry was pushed shut, there were two toots on the whistle, ferry engines became more energetic, and quite quickly, the white vessel slid away. The rails were crowded with children vigorously waving to others on shore with whom they had made holiday friendships sworn to last forever. The air of bustle and movement was so strong that kisses of greeting and clumsy hugs, hellos among the parents and the group were very brief. One could think of victorious troops returning from overseas after a long campaign, the ultimate battle won. It was left to eyes, faces and smiles, and shrieked hellos to tell of happy reunions. With a common impulse, they swept towards the part of the jetty where the awaiting baggage piles were diminishing by the second. Two cord-bound cardboard boxes were clearly marked Mckenzie along with the two soft bags which made up their total. More very brief goodbyes and the baggage was bundled into the back of the car. Two girls were happy to be home.

‘Well. Did you have a good time?’ Roddy asked the pair as they set off for Corriedale.

‘Ooh, yes! It was really terrific, Dad.’

‘It was very much a holiday, holiday, totally relaxing,’ Jess said with a little sigh of happy memory. ‘We all got on very well without any hard decisions having to be made about which things to do. Everyone seemed to manage to get a bit of what he or she wanted. Wouldn’t you say so, Helen?’

‘I didn’t hear any grumbles and people who wanted specially to go bird watching could go off and do that or whatever, and the tennis players could go off and do that, we could all swim when we wanted to. I just love Rottnest.’

At Corriedale, the baggage was brought in down below, and the boxes of fish were put on a table in the Pirate’s Cave (it was no longer used by the local pirates, who seemed to have grown out of being the scourge of the Spanish Main), where Roddy immediately set to, to open and view the trophies of the hunt—and what trophies there were! There were octopus and squid, King George whiting and sand whiting, and herring and two supersized western rock lobsters (locally called crayfish)—what a catch! Roddy was delighted. ‘Jeffrey did us well! Needless to say, I’ll have to undergo fisherman’s yarns from you two—just joking! Just joking! I do want to hear how all this came about.

‘Jess, if you two want to go off and change, I’ll pack these beauties away and be ready to pour the champagne to celebrate the return of the fishermen from the briny depths. I’d love to take you two out for a meal this evening, but I’ve promised Erik I’d be standing by for a call any time from six this evening. I’ve got some Bolognese that I made. We could have penne Bolognese. There’s also some Parmigiano-Reggiano nicely grated by the Lo Presti girls. Would that be OK? I don’t want to put you two face to face with the reality of mainland living, so I’d be delighted to do the meal. It would mean we could keep your catch for special delights. Please let me. You can be drink waiters and table setters. How’s that?’

Helen got in first: ‘I’d prefer that to going out, Dad. I want to be in.’

A downcast Jessica, with a visage to match her feeling of sad desolation, managed to say, ‘I suppose I have to do what you party poopers want. I wanted to go out in my little black thing and wear high heels—with no sand in them. I’d pretend I was smoking a Turkish cigarette from a long black holder and sitting under a glittering revolving chandelier, with smoky darkness all around, champagne corks would pop everywhere, a brilliantly creative pianist would be playing As Time Goes By while men—and ladies with long blonde hair—would be huddled round tables, swapping espionage—’

Jess’s vision was rather abruptly interrupted. ‘Helle, has she been reading paperbacks left by the previous tenants?’ enquired her father. Then to Jessica: ‘Close your eyes. Imagine the chandelier. We can organise the popping of corks.’ Then to Helen, ‘We’ll make it up to her next weekend when we whisk her off to fly too high with some guy in the sky where she’ll find nothing to do. But not tonight—tonight, it’s penne con succo alla Bolognese e vino rosso da Valdicigno.’

The catch had been gutted and scaled while still at sea, so all was ready for refrigeration. The family had a special freezer down there in the cave, and wrapping and stowing was a simple operation. Part of the design of the cave when its major role as a children’s playhouse had ceased to be of any importance, was as an outdoor kitchen where crayfish and prawns could be boiled, fish could be gutted, and shot game could be skinned or plucked, where smoky cooking could be done, and big events like preparation of the annual passato could take place. For garden entertainment, barbeques could be cooked with flow-on access to the front lawn which was now well established… It faced outwards and backed on to the music room and so caused no affront to its aesthete users.

‘I’d better go and slip into some sackcloth,’ sighed a voice in feigned dejection and resignation, and its possessor went off to shower and change, taking with her the mists of her vision.

‘Aw! Poor old Mum,’ Helen intoned in sad sympathy before she left. ‘We’ll have to put a fire on so she can sit by the ashes and look at her bare toes.’

When Cinderella joined Helen and Roddy upstairs in the big kitchen, he popped a cork. The sauce was heating nicely, and the penne would take minutes. They sat in the evening light at a veranda table, prepared to prolong the pleasure of sipping champagne. The air was almost still now that the sou’wester was about to rest until tomorrow and the easterly had not yet got up. They talked about the Rottnest experience, the infamous beds, the swims, the walks, the birds, the skinks, the quokkas, the sunsets, the views, the rocks, the coves, the fish, their companions and their evening barbecues. They had not quite finished eating, and there was a rare lull in the conversation when the only sound was the susurrus of the surf. Shock! The shrieking call of an alarm bell burst into the serenity. It was the telephone.

‘Sorry, folks, excuse me, this will be Erik phoning from Mallorca.’ He put his napkin down and headed for his office.

‘Hello—Rod Mckenzie.’

‘Hello, Roddy. I’m sure your outline plan is the way to go.’ He then briefly described what he could see as being Nicol’s possible situation. Roddy acknowledged, then went on to describe how he thought the operation should run. ‘I think this assault should be opened by a Mckenzie platoon employing the secret weapon of which Nicol has only heard hints—my family. When he meets Jess and Helle and sees how we get on, how could he believe that I could in any way be involved in a murder? And what trouble might his enquiries cause for this delightful, innocent family? This will aggravate his uncertainty about me. At the same time, he’ll have you in mind. I also want to add that idea to what I have to say about you. Look, he’s seen a bit of my business and some of my people and some clients. Believe me, they all gave me glowing references. He can see I didn’t build my business through any shonky practice. So, what I say must have some credibility. He’s been down to see you in your civilian role. That seems to have been a smooth, no-twitches exchange. There’s a lot of emotional stuff gathering here which just needs a final push. Here’s my outline plan. See what you think. I will cable Nicol, tell him Clan Mckenzie is coming to UK to visit the grannies, our mothers in Fearnas. I would ask him if he’d like to meet us for lunch at Veeraswamy’s so that he can meet my girls before we go on up to Scotland. Near end of the lunch, Jess and Helen would beg leave to go and buy something for her mother. The family would discuss meeting back at Hazlitt’s. Nicol and I would be left alone. I would then deliver a diatribe and disappear.’

Roddy then gave Erik a brief version of what he had been forming in his mind to say to Nicol. Its main purpose was to increase the degree of uncertainty, to cloud further any unformed ideas that Nicol may be attempting to clarify in his mind, and to indicate the dangers to the successful outcome of his investigation. The consequences would a lasting reputation of his failure. If he allowed himself to drag innocent people—meaning you and me and my family—into what he described as a murder investigation, believing that we would not take action to redress a grievance thus caused would bring down upon himself considerable wrath. I will tell him of your reputation and my incredulity in trying to understand how he could possibly imagine that such a man as you will have been described could possibly commit a felony. I shall also advise him that should he take any action against you, it would fail, and using the law, I would take any action I saw fit, to see that it would fail. He would be placing himself in danger. I want to confuse and unsettle him and make him see that.’ He waited for Erik’s comment.

‘My goodness, Roddy, I’m flattered and gratified to think you would undertake to do such a thing, but it’s way beyond the call of duty. It’s a very dramatic intervention, and knowing your style, I’ve got every belief that it would have the desired effect. It’s a huge effort on your part. I’ve been thinking along similar lines. It would be hell for a man like that to make his farewell, his last task, a fiasco. I’m convinced I should come over too, and having heard your plan, I should follow up perhaps only a day or so later, while everything is still volatile.

‘Let me just tell you what’s been garnered in the meantime. I have an old chum in MI5, so I asked him to find out about Nicol. On the basis that MI5 might want to recruit Nicol, he talked with his contacts in the War Office, Foreign Office, and the Met. He said that he needed to have a look at the most detailed report on Nicol he could get. As a result of their efforts, we have quite a bit of information, and there’s a piece I think would be highly usable, which ties in very well with your approach relating to his reputation and how soul-destroying it would be to go out with a bad record. Like everybody else in the army and the Palestine Police, he bent the rules on some occasions. Knowing this, I’m going to put it to him that he broke the rules when he was in the Palestine Police—he took risks then. That was a terrible time, and sometimes terrible things were done. People felt the imperative, shall I say, to take risks. The present days aren’t such times, bad as they are. Worse, the popular view has changed. What was done in Palestine then and was thought laudable is seen now as the crime it, in truth, was. Some very big names have tried to wriggle out from under—some from our regiment. Juries would now see their conduct as part of what the power-hungry, superior imperialists did to maintain control. You are not as young now as you were then, I shall say. There is no career time left to you to continue to soldier on while records of discrepancies get stuck in the back of the files and don’t raise much interest, or become forgotten. When you finally leave the force, all that will be remembered will be what you did last. Senior officers who themselves are about to retire, or young ones on the way up, don’t want overzealous—or shall I say misguided—officers, causing problems that could easily have been avoided by an officer of above-average intelligence. They don’t want the Met to supply front pages for the tabloids. Besides, some other agency may want to make you an interesting job offer.

‘I think something along those lines would go along with and could clinch your approach. It won’t do any harm for him to get the feeling that not only do I have specific information, I’ve got a couple of actual instances of Nicol’s involvements in Palestine which I think will rattle him. I’m pretty sure they will. They’re restricted information which would not sound too well if directed at a police witness in court. And more importantly, another question of concern to him will be, How did I get a hold of that information?’

‘By God, Erik, that’s strong stuff! I am certain it will give us our objective. Each will have to find his way out of whatever negative tamasha might develop. I seriously don’t think he’ll take precipitate action on the day. If he gets very regimental with me and wants me to make a direct statement, I shall go back to what was in my statement to him and say, This is the very point at which I must say again, ‘Nemo me impune lacessit.’ You must have time to think whether asking me that question will lead to a response which could be to your advantage. It may not. It may well be to your major disadvantage. Your considerable experience should be your guide. You are speaking to me, Roddy Mckenzie. I would never consciously do anything to your disadvantage. Don’t do it yourself. If that fails, I’d say, Send a policeman to arrest me. What do you think?

‘I think it is an amazing act of friendship and damned good thinking. If we both hold firmly to our plan on the day, I’m sure we have to succeed. Let me know that you have kept the RV with Nicol and report reaction. I’ll contact him for a meeting in London two days after you.

‘After your meeting, please let me know your reactions. We’ll have to plan what to do after we have gone through the objective. Now, communications,’ continued Roddy. ‘Can I suggest that, for comms with you, I use the infallible Eve? With me, the times and place we use now can stand, but in extremis, through Madge at my field HQ.’

‘Roger!’ said Erik. ‘I’m glad you are so energetically and sensibly committed and believe this is something we should do. Comms lines you suggest are best possible,’ Erik confirmed.

‘The first move is mine. I’ll maintain contact.’

‘Bon soir, et bonne chance.’ And Erik went off the air.

Roddy returned to join the diners and Jess fetched the remainder of his pasta, which was being kept warm.

‘How is Erik?’ she asked.

‘You know, I didn’t think to ask him. But he sounded OK. We needed to talk about the long-forgotten Bartolemeusz affair. Colin Nicol brought the subject up while he was here, and I thought I needed to tell Erik what he said.’

‘Is it going to be troublesome?’

‘We-ell, whatever eventuates, it will be a nuisance, so Erik and I need to decide what action we need to take. I’d hate something adverse to happen to Erik at this stage in his life, or any time, so I want to see what I can do to help in the best way. It may be that I could do something when we’re in England, and I’m sure it won’t disrupt our visit. We haven’t really finished discussing our visit yet, apart from our bookings and arrivals and departures. We have so many great friends we’d all love to see again. I feel somehow that this is a most important voyage for us, for each of us. So many things are going to happen in the next year.’

oooOOOooo

When Roddy Mckenzie had left Colin Nicol at the passenger departure gate, Colin walked out, under a clear blue sky into the dazzling sunlight and intense dry heat, towards the steps which led steeply up into the fuselage of the aircraft.

An air hostess, very smart in a crisp deep-blue uniform, showed him to his seat by a port-side window. He was seated forward just behind the cockpit bulkhead, with decent leg room and a view past the wing’s leading edge.

As the aircraft’s motors roared and it gathered speed along the runway, the hills of the Darling Ranges slipped quickly by the window. These ranges had some meaning for him now, because he had driven up and down a part of their escarpment and seen how their surfaces were formed and what kind of vegetation gave them the colour he could see now.

Then they were up and away. Below, the impression was of green: green trees that closed around houses with red tiled roofs, bordered little streets which mostly ran in straight lines and surrounded green grassy stretches of many parks and playing fields. And there was the city, its tall buildings on the northern bank of the Swan River’s broad expanse of Melville water, both sparkling in the sunlight.

He could see Fremantle in the distance, and of course, he tried to figure out where Corriedale must be, and the HQ of Ugojim and Mckenzie Earthmoving further south towards the harbour. On the right somewhere would be Bert McPartland’s fine hotel. He realised that he was feeling a slight hint of proprietorship. Ah, that was Rottnest! Jessica and Helen would be home back from their holiday tomorrow. What a pity he hadn’t met them. Whoever mentioned them did so with affection. Now, Rottnest had passed below and was gone from view; ahead lay thousands of miles of the Indian Ocean with Ile Maurice, then Africa the next lands. The plane gently banked and headed north up the length of the Indian Ocean towards Pakistan.

When they had climbed so high that looking down at the sea meant craning his neck, he sat back. Images, ideas, and feelings about the last three days flowed into his mind.

In a brief, fanciful, disturbing moment, he thought, ‘What if Roddy Mckenzie had delivered the killing blow?’

Suddenly, he realised that he didn’t know what he would do.

But of course he knew what he would do! He would do his duty. That is what policemen are sworn to do; and he was a policeman, even if retired and doing a part-time job for the Unsolved Crime and Open Case Squad.

Yet images of Roddy Mckenzie flooded into his mind, and his internal hearing was full of the voices that had spoken to him about Roddy. He thought of all the people he had met who had anything to do with Mckenzie—or his wife and daughter—and each was an enthusiastic volunteer of admiration for him and them. The evidence of his eyes and ears composed a character that was much respected. His own experience was clear, palpable.

Swiftly subtle subterfuge offered help: ‘Don’t be a bloody fool, Nicol, you have no evidence yet.’

But once having laid down its neuronal path and having burned it with such heat, he knew that the question could not be erased.

Despite his best efforts and deluding himself that he was making a cold intellectual assessment of the situation, he attempted to carry on with an objective analysis.

Could anyone who acted with Mackenzie’s free, innocent confidence possibly be a killer? If he could be a killer, what motive could he have had to kill Bartolemeusz? In the papers from the Bartolemeusz offices, which had been examined, there was no reference to a Mckenzie. In reference to Barron, there were only terse notations of work undertaken, fees charged and paid. What the record indicated, then, was that Bartolemeusz had been engaged to do certain tasks—that these had been carried out, and had been paid for. It could be imagined that the dealings between the two had been completed as agreed. So, what motive could Barron have had to kill Bartolemeusz?

And what about Major Barron? He had found out that Barron had been a very young subaltern in a Wingate column in Burma and had commanded a company in Korea, where he won a Military Cross. He had read in press clippings gathered by the police team in their dungeon quarters at Unsolved Crime and Open Case Squad of his having turned his yacht back in deadly seas, to take the crew off another stricken competitor when away out in front and when going ahead was a much less difficult course. He was a splendid figure of a human; with handsome height, he had an open demeanour, attentive eyes when engaged in conversation and an engaging generosity of spirit. Could this man be a murderer?

Nicol had been with both men now, and despite a persistent scepticism, he had to ask himself if what he admired in men such as these was the stuff which precluded them from murder.

‘Let’s say,’ he thought, ‘I have two men, present when a man has been murdered. Let’s say I don’t believe they fit the murderer paradigm, should there be such a thing, and that they are protecting a fourth person? I thought there was a third man in the room, and the not necessarily well founded suspicions that that might be Mckenzie. Was there a fourth that both of these are protecting? If this were the case, why would they do that? Consider the lives they lead and how they live them! They live under no apparent threat. They must be protecting another person: who and why?’

His mind returned to the little venture he had made down to Cowes, where, with the help of the local constabulary, it seemed that he could get to meet Major Barron in the relaxed surroundings of a cruising, racing yacht club.

There is a time in the affairs of men when you are just bloody lucky. This was Nicol’s case on this day. He had found out something of the history of one person who had had an appointment with the dead man for the day following his death. The name in the dead lawyer’s appointment book read, ‘Erik Barron—4 p.m.’ He had a feeling. Detective superintendents’ very rarely, if ever, have ‘feelings’. As readers of crime novels know, only super-intuitive, very sensitive private persons, brilliant amateurs like Sherlock Holmes and M. Poirot, enjoy this facility of mind. But Colin Nicol surely had a feeling. In the history of this man Barron, he found that he was a racing yachtsman, a member of the Cowes Royal Corinthian Yacht Club. So, under great hardship, he would drive gently down from his Surrey home, through Sussex—Sussex by the sea—to the lovely island of Cowes. There he would talk with the local constabulary, among whom there was no one he could remember that he knew. But there exists that wonderful bonding influence, esprit de corps, which, oiled by a few minutes of comradely chat with the local inspector and the display of his confirmatory credentials and an outline of his intentions, a very positive response was forthcoming. The inspector made a telephone call to the Corinthians’ club. ‘Bo’sun speaking,’ was the response.

The inspector knew and had used this number on other occasions. ‘Jack, Inspector Harry Pitcher here, I’ve got someone with me who wants to know if Erik Barron’s on your premises.’