“Guess who, Elaine! Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte! He says we must call him ‘Bony’. Says if we don’t he’ll recommend my demotion. Meet the wife…er, Bony.”
Inspector Bonaparte! Her husband’s tin god. The greatest crime investigator in all Australian history -according to her husband. The man who never yet had failed-again according to her husband.
Now she was being bowed to, and one part of her mind wondered why the other part told her that she was a woman, not just Elaine Easter. She was caught by the blue eyes and found herself listening with pleasure to his voice.
“All my friends call me ‘Bony’, Mrs. Easter. Even my Chief Commissioner, my wife and my sons, call me ‘Bony’. I’ve been sure I would meet none but friends at Chifley.”
Chapter Two
Bonaparte’s Assignment
ATbreakfast the Easters were captivated by their official guest, but it was not until much later that day that they were able to analyse their reactions. Both were of what is loosely termed ‘the bush’, and they had expected their guest to be the opposite of what he proved to be-one of them.
That he was of mixed races they had to accept, reluctantly. His features and bearing were far removed from the castes with whom they were familiar along these southern districts of Australia, for Bonaparte had entered the world in the mid-north of Queensland, and his maternal ancestry had been powerfully influenced by the impact of the Polynesian peoples. When meeting the calm blue eyes and listening to the softaccentless voice, it was so easy to forget the duality of races.
Bony had crossed the Nullarbor many times, by train and plane; once only by car following the old telegraph route which skirts the southern edge of the Plain where it drops to the narrow coastal belt. Never previously had he been professionally interested in this part of Australia, and he anticipated no hardships additional to those he had experienced closer to the centre, such as the mulga forests, the gibber deserts, the desolation of the salt-pan basins. Although these several geophysical areas are strikingly different, common to all is the force of opposition to man, varied only by the circumstances confronting the individual.