Free Death of an Old Goat by Robert Barnard Page B

usually does.’
    â€˜English, eh?’ said Win. ‘Not really your business, is it? I mean, him not being an Australian. Couldn’t they send somebody out from Scotland Yard?’
    Rosy visions went through Win’s tiny brain of including among her very special friends Inspector Alleyn, or even Lord Peter Wimsey. Royle followed her train of thought.
    â€˜Scotland bloody Yard,’ he said in disgust. And when he went he banged the front door, and failed to achieve the nonchalant manner that he was usually so careful to assume when he left the various houses that he called at during the week.
    He strode down the street to the car which he had parked round the corner — a touch more traditional thansubtle. He was tall, heavily built, with dull eyes and a permanent midnight shadow. The criminals of Drummondale — about twenty per cent of the population — had a healthy respect for his fists and his boot, and none at all for his brain. But though he did not do a great deal to keep down crime, many people — and not just married women — were glad to have him around. For example he was well-known to the local publicans not only for his huge capacity with the beer glass, but also for his friendly readiness to ring them up before an after-hours raid. The local graziers found him very accommodating, too — but then, those whom they did not find accommodating never lasted long in Drummondale. He had a wife and two little girls in a weather-board house on the outskirts of the town, but mostly he tried to forget about them, and they in their turn tried not to think too much about him either.
    He eased himself into the police car, and put the key in the starter. As he drove off he groaned with his whole great body. Some University toff. Just the very worst kind of case. Now, with an Abo, you could just round up some of his friends and neighbours, thump the living daylights out of a few of them, and you’d have someone on a charge in no time. And with the graziers, well, you could come to some sort of amicable agreement. The trouble with University people was that you couldn’t thump them and they couldn’t afford to bribe you. Most of them were so feeble, anyway, that if you tried to thump them they’d collapse in a dead heap on the floor. But in any case, it wasn’t worth it. He’d tried it once when he first arrived, but never again. There had been letters in the Australian and the Nation , questions asked in State Parliament, and a protest meeting organized by the Civil Liberties people. He’d been reprimanded by his superiors for that little lark. True, they’d winked while they did it, but it had gone down on his record, and he’d had to give up the practice entirely for some months. It might even have put back his promotion.No, there wouldn’t be any thumping this time. But then, how else was he to find out who did it?
    He drove the police car past the reception office of the Yarumba Motel and over to the doorway which Sergeant Brady was standing in. Some of the other cabins also had people in their doorways, or peering out of their windows, showing that the good news had travelled fast. Royle looked down to see that his dress was properly adjusted, and got heavily out of the car. He looked at Brady vindictively.
    â€˜It’s coming to something, it really is,’ he muttered. ‘When a chap can’t even have a quick naughty without being pestered and . . . Oh my Christ.’
    He had brushed past his sergeant into the room, and was now surveying the feeble old body and the bloodstained bed, with the spurt on the wall over the reading light, and the red-brown stain on the carpet. It was the sort of thing that he rather enjoyed on TV, but it wasn’t the sort of thing he’d come across much in real life. Murders he had known of course, in plenty. He often said proudly that Australia was the country for murders. He’d