The Wood Pile

BROOME has no Main Street. It has no shoppingcentre, no shops fronted with plate-glass display windows. There are no trams, and no railway. Several airlines use the airport, but no one knows when a plane is due, or when one is about to depart. Sometimes a ship arrives to be moored to the long jetty at high tide. When the tide goes out the ship rests like a tired hog on the sand beside the jetty and the loading is languidly carried on while the tide comes in and re-floats the vessel.

The town is situated behind coast sand-dunes, sprawled on the flats north of the Dampier Creek. The streets are very wide, and all the houses sit down like old ladies wearing hoop skirts and being far too lady-like to take the slightest notice of their neighbours. Every house occupied by the white population is of the bungalow type, and every house is protected with storm shutters, some even wire-cabled to the ground, for when the summer willies blow they are apt to lift more than dust.

The police station was a large house squatting in about four acres of straggly trees, dying grass and bare earth. The floor rested on piles three feet above ground, and the rooms were many and airy.

At dinner on the day Bony arrived at Broome, there sat at table the inspector and his wife, their son Keith, aged fourteen, their daughter Nanette, aged thirteen, and Inspector Bonaparte, alias Mr. Knapp. Inspector Walters carved the roast. His back wasstraight, his hands dexterously employed the bone-handled carving knife and fork with the bright steel shield. His expression was severe. He said nothing, and, sensing the slight strain, Bony opened the conversation.