Cardilini didn’t exhale until he was in his car, where he fought a feeling of wretchedness.

Bentley

6.30 p.m. Wednesday, 4th November 1965

Evening gathered methodically on the verandahs, among the trees and towards the end of Williamson’s street. From his car Cardilini watched its slow encroachment. I’ll wait until the streetlights come on, he told himself. The streetlights came on and the gloom darkened but he continued sitting. Casual glances came his way from a man watering his front garden. He sat stubbornly. The man went inside his house. A car turned into the street. Cardilini watched it slow down and pull up at Williamson’s house. Cardilini opened his car door and walked towards the car. Bradley Williamson stood by the vehicle waiting for Cardilini to approach.

‘Bradley Williamson?’

‘Who’s asking?’

‘Detective Sergeant Cardilini, East Perth branch.’

‘I’ve heard about you.’

Cardilini paused. Williamson was six foot, square, trim and compact. He held Cardilini in an unblinking gaze.

‘From who?’ Cardilini asked.

‘Ask your questions, I might answer or I might not.’

‘Did you shoot Captain Edmund?’

Williamson tilted his head back and laughed.

‘Did you?’ Cardilini asked again when Williamson had settled.

‘They said you had a one-track mind.’

‘Who?’

‘Difficult is it, living with that?’ Williamson asked.

‘No. Getting away with murder is difficult.’

‘Experienced that, have you?’

A man in complete possession of himself, Cardilini thought, a strong, honest, straightforward man; a man other men would follow without a second thought. Cardilini fought an instinct to like Williamson.

‘Do you know who shot Captain Edmund?’ he persisted.

‘You’re getting boring, Cardilini.’

‘Answer me and I’ll suddenly get interesting.’

‘I was on a train from Sydney when it happened, but you’ve been told that.’

‘What?’

‘My mother told you I was travelling at the time of Edmund’s death.’

Cardilini remembered Mrs Williamson telling him. The booze had rotted his brain, he thought.

‘I know why he was shot,’ Cardilini said.

‘Tell me?’

‘For the deaths of Geoffrey Masters, Colin Sheppard and Peter Doney.’

Williamson didn’t respond.

‘Maybe you didn’t pull the trigger but you and others decided it was time to stop Edmund’s abuse.’

‘You’ve lost me, Cardilini, but how’s Salt going?’ Williamson asked.

‘Who was it, Mo Sheppard, Doney? They’re farmers, they’d have access to .303s.’ Cardilini continued.

‘Constable Salt will make a good cop. He also sees everything in black and white,’ Williamson ruminated, ignoring Cardilini.

‘But you don’t see everything in black and white?’ Cardilini asked.

‘Oh yeah, I do. There’s right and there’s wrong. You’ve got to choose where you stand.’

‘And you think you have chosen, right?’

‘But I guess, Cardilini, you don’t get to choose. You get told what’s right and wrong.’

‘What Edmund did was inexcusable.’

‘Not everyone agreed with that. But the shooting was accidental, don’t you read your own department reports?’

‘Did you read it?’