Joan handed the envelope to her father. ‘Use it for whatever you need. Richard’s care, perhaps. I’ll be able to help out some more over time.’
Horace opened the envelope and gasped as he flicked his fingers through the wad of notes inside. ‘My God! Joan, how can you … ?’
‘I can. And I want to.’
Tears trembled on Horace’s eyelids. The look on her father’s face was of such blessed relief that there was no doubting that this money was desperately needed. Joan even wondered if Horace still owed the bank money on the house. She leaned forward and kissed him on the forehead. ‘It’s the least I can do. For you both.’ Any traces of guilt she had felt about the blackmail instantly evaporated. She put her finger to her lips to seal their conspiracy of silence.
Horace wiped the tears from his cheeks and pressed her hand in his. ‘Thank you.’
He quickly slipped the envelope into the inside pocket of his jacket as Gloria came out with the tea tray. As was her custom, she had brought out an extra cup and plate for the absent guest, James. Hugh and Richard walked back through the garden, and Hugh apologised for having to leave so soon. ‘Errands to run. I’ll call back later—about five, say—to take Joan home.’
‘Oh, I was hoping you both might stay for the play,’ said Gloria. ‘It starts at four-thirty.’
At Joan’s puzzled look, Gloria explained that the Haven Valley Scenic Theatre was putting on a play that evening at the open-air amphitheatre in the suburb next door. Back in the twenties, the famous American architects Walter Burley Griffin and his wife Marion had bought up most of Castlecrag and Castle Cove to bring about their utopian vision of a model garden suburb based on the town-planning principles they had conceived for Canberra. Walter’s layout for this estate mirrored the contours of the local hills with open bushland reserves and flat-roofed houses made from local stone that would blend into the landscape. For her part, Marion helped the residents design and build a community amphitheatre dug out of a gully overlooking the waters of Middle Harbour, with tiered seating hewn from local sandstone. Tonight’s production, to be performed amid the rocks and trees of this bushland glen, was Euripides’s The Bacchae.
‘We must go!’ exclaimed Joan. ‘Please, Hugh. I’ve never seen it.’
Hugh looked puzzled at first by Joan’s sudden enthusiasm for Greek tragedy, and then the penny dropped. ‘Alright, if you really want to. I’ll get back in time to drive us there.’
A few years back, Joan’s father had taken her to Balmoral Beach to see the other amphitheatre adorning Sydney’s foreshore. The Star Amphitheatre had been built for the Order of the Star in the East, an offshoot of the Australian Theosophical Society. This classical Greek amphitheatre framed a perfect view of North Head. Sadly, the theosophists’ messiah, Krishnamurti, only ever gave one lecture here and then dissolved the order and renounced his part in it. The last Joan heard, the Star was being used as a venue for vaudeville entertainers.
When Hugh, Joan and her parents arrived in the late afternoon at the valley in Castlecrag, Joan was struck by how different the Haven Valley Amphitheatre was from the Star. Yes, it was the pet project of Marion Griffin who, like her husband, was a disciple of Rudolf Steiner’s Anthroposophic Society, another esoteric spiritual movement that had split from the Theosophists. But, unlike the Star, this amphitheatre did not sit absurdly atop the landscape as if it had time-travelled from ancient Greece and dropped out of the heavens.
Instead, this bush theatre seemed to Joan to have emerged out of the earth, its sandstone seats pushing up through the native grasses and gum-leaf litter. The whole valley was its stage, with the glittering blue of Middle Harbour as a backdrop glimpsed through trees. The stage scenery was composed of terraces of spectacular rocks, huge boulders, precipitous drops and promontories high over the water. A stream flowed through it down to the sea and an overhang formed a mysterious cave. Gloria told Joan and Hugh how, as the seasons changed, nature painted all these settings in a shifting array of brilliant colours: in summer, flashes of Christmas bush and the towering angophoras, their bark turned to vivid crimson and branches heavy with starry bursts of white blossom; the wattles bursting with gold in winter; the ruby-red waratahs in spring; and the white bells of lily-of-the-valley in autumn.
Marion Griffin made a brief introduction before the play, explaining that the young actors from a local drama club were trained in the Rudolf Steiner method of ‘eurythmy’. Whatever this meant (it made little sense to Joan), the result was that everyone moved like sleepwalkers, heads lifted skywards, bodies held erect, eyes fixed, faces expressionless. There seemed to be a strictly prescribed set of gestures—hands rippling or raised in supplication, arms spread wide or clasped over heads—as if partaking in an obscure style of full body semaphore.
As early dusk settled over the valley, bright lights concealed behind outcrops illuminated the actors in groupings of two, three and four atop a tor-like boulder here or on a flat ridge there. They were all, male and female alike, costumed in ankle-length, flowing robes, each a single colour (purple, blue, plum, white), resembling the vestments of an ancient cult. Drums provided a soundtrack notable for its air of hypnotic insistence.
Despite the strangeness of the performance (maybe even because of it), Joan was entranced both by the atmosphere and, more significantly, by the play itself. Dionysus, god of wine and of uninhibited joy and instinct, comes to Thebes to put an end to the false rumours that he is not a son of Zeus by his mother Semele. Pentheus, the king of Thebes, who represents all that is rational and civilised, has forbidden the Dionysian rites of worship. But the god has his revenge. His women celebrants, the Bacchae, led by Pentheus’s mother Agave, run wild on the mountainside and rend animals limb from limb with their bare hands.
Dionysus persuades Pentheus to spy on the Bacchae, but they find him and, in a frenzy, tear his body to pieces. Agave bears his bloodied head as a trophy back to Thebes, thinking it is the head of a lion. When the madness passes she sees she has slain her son. The royal house of Thebes has been destroyed by the avenging god. Agave’s piteous shriek on recognising what she has done—‘Ah no! ’Tis Pentheus’ head which I his unhappy mother hold!’—gripped the entire audience in a rapture of horror unlike anything Joan had experienced.
She could see Hugh’s eyes shining in the darkness; he too was mesmerised, excited. How strange that she could look unflinchingly on a ritualised horror like this one, framed by a dramatic story and a theatrical performance, while still woken in a panic nearly every night by nightmarish images of Ellie and sometimes her brother James, both butchered and bloody, wandering lost in blasted, foggy landscapes of oblivion. Was this true for Hugh too, who as a soldier, like her brother Richard, had been forced to witness the unspeakable?
‘That was quite something,’ said Hugh as they sped across Long Gully Bridge to make the last car ferry run at 7 pm, leaving Gloria and Horace to happy memories of their day together as a family. Joan had conveyed to Hugh her father’s look of relief and his gratitude. Hugh had been warned not to raise the subject of James for fear of triggering one of her mother’s obsessive moods about her dead son. ‘When I was alone with your dad, I said some things about what a fine fellow James was, from the little I knew of him.’
‘Thank you, my darling. I’m sure it meant the world to him.’
‘I hope so.’ Hugh’s attention drifted back to The Bacchae. ‘I suppose Olympia named her ladies’ club after the play.’
‘No doubt. She is a very cultured woman, my aunt. With strong convictions.’ Joan had her own preoccupations. She fiddled a little nervously with her gloves and cleared her throat. ‘Speaking of which, what do you think I should do now that Gordon has paid up? Do you think that I should go to the cops and tell them what I know?’
Hugh sighed. ‘Maybe. But what exactly would you tell them? You successfully blackmailed your uncle with a note you took from the crime scene so he must be guilty? And let’s say they search his premises for it. If he hasn’t
destroyed the letterhead yet, they’ll find it covered in your fingerprints. You would need more concrete proof than that to persuade the cops it would be worthwhile messing about in Gordon’s affairs.’
Joan felt as if this was the moment to tell Hugh what Ruby had said. But then Hugh had already guessed that a relationship between her uncle and Ellie was entirely possible, even likely, and it still did not prove that Gordon was her murderer. And Ruby might not turn out to be the most reliable of witnesses, especially as she had not even seen Gordon. Hugh also made a good point about Joan’s fingerprints on the letterhead, if it still existed. God forbid the cops consider her a suspect!
She needed more time to see what she could find out about Olympia’s Goddess Club. She would have the opportunity to snoop around her aunt and uncle’s flat the following night. And, reluctant as Joan was to suspect her closest friend of murder, she could not ignore the unease Mavis’s story of Bernie at the brothel had aroused in her. Like Agave under the spell of Bacchus, Bernie became a different person when possessed by her demons of madness and drink. Who knew what she was really capable of? Did Bernice herself even know?
‘You’re right. Let’s see what the cops come up with. They’re the professionals,’ said Joan as she gazed out the car window. It seemed to her that the span of the new bridge in the distance glistened with a mysterious menace against the dark harbour. If Euripides’s play showed her nothing else, it was that human nature unmasked could reveal unimaginable savagery. Joan must be patient and watchful. The shadow city would reveal its secrets soon enough.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Hugh dropped Joan back to Bomora close to 8 pm and bid her farewell with a merry blast of the klaxon as he sped away. The light was still on in Mrs Moxham’s front parlour, and as Joan entered the lobby the landlady opened the door of her flat.
‘Nice day out with your fancy man, Miss Linderman?’
‘Yes, thank you,’ replied Joan stiffly, too tired to rise to the bait. ‘Very nice.’
‘Don’t suppose you’ve found anywhere to move yet?’ the landlady probed. ‘Maybe he could set you up in some nice flat or bungalow, eh?’
More than half of Bomora’s flats were empty now; trucks, vans and even a horse and cart had been coming and going all week to take away the tenants and their modest belongings. Many of the flats had come fully furnished, so no doubt the new owners would sell off the remaining contents or leave them on the street for scavengers before the demolition gang arrived.
‘As a matter of fact, we’ve just signed a lease for a place over on Bayswater Road,’ Joan said, hoping that Bernice’s visit there earlier in the day had been successful. Joan refused to give Mrs Moxham the satisfaction of feeling she had the upper hand. ‘Was there something you wanted, Mrs Moxham?’
The landlady sniffed. ‘Just wondering if you’d heard anything about your whore friend, Jessie. Someone’s gonna have to clean that stuff out of her room or else it all goes to the tip.’
It was almost a week since Jess’s disappearance and neither Joan nor Bernie dared speak their worst fears as day after day passed and they heard nothing from Lillian Armfield. Bernice had even dropped a note to Doris, the friend in Darlo who had agreed to put Jessie up in her attic room, to see if she had been in touch. But Doris hadn’t heard a word.
‘I’m sure she will be back soon to pick up her stuff.’
‘Maybe. Maybe not. Coppers were back here today. Snooping all over the joint. I’d be watching my step if I was you!’
‘Thanks for the advice, Mrs Moxham. Goodnight.’
Stupid woman, what was she implying? Joan began climbing the stairs and Mrs Moxham retreated to her flat with a slam of her door. Halfway up, Joan hesitated. Why were the police here again? Did they have some new lead or theory? She turned and began to descend the stairs.
Maybe it was something to do with the late hour and the melancholy mood that always followed a perfect day; or the memory of the gory climax of the play; or the dark corridor with rooms standing empty and abandoned; or the unsettling insinuations by the landlady; or the thought that Jess and Ellie were gone forever and their last few possessions were about to be erased. What was it exactly that drew Joan back to the scene of the crime?
To her surprise, the door was not locked; she turned the knob and pushed it open. A shaft of cold moonlight bisected the front room, rendering it black and white, like a photograph: the gas ring in the corner, a sink full of dirty pots and plates, the beaded lamp with a burned-out bulb, the dark sofa. Joan’s mind snapped back to the night of the murder—was it really only eight days ago?—and she felt that chill of fear again all over her body.
Her heart leaped momentarily at the sight of a woman standing in front of her, before she realised it was only herself caught in the mirror of a vanity table against the opposite wall, the drawers all yanked open and overflowing with scarves and stockings and items of lingerie. The clutter of hair combs and eyebrow tweezers, lipstick and mascara, bottles of cheap scent and gaudy knick-knacks had the poignant air of everyday life suspended midstream. Joan could easily imagine the clock restarting as Ellie or Jessie entered and sat down to fix their hair and make-up for work, the radiogram in the corner lighting up with a catchy dance tune. Was there anything here the police had missed, some small detail they might have overlooked?
What was that noise?
Joan froze. There was a low moaning sound coming from Ellie’s bedroom. Joan did not believe in ghosts; it must be her imagination playing tricks on her. Even so, fear prickled across the nape of her neck.
There it was again!
This time Joan recognised it as a sob. She moved slowly towards the bedroom door. Could it be Jessie? Had she decided to surface again for a last secret farewell visit to her old flat before it was demolished?
The door was ajar. Joan saw a figure, shoulders hunched, sitting on the edge of Ellie’s bed. A woman. A floorboard creaked beneath Joan’s foot and the woman’s head snapped around. She stared at Joan, wild-eyed with fear and anger. Her face was deathly pale, eyes red-rimmed from weeping.
‘Bernie?’
Joan could smell the alcohol that came off Bernice as a sour reek.
‘What?’ barked her flatmate, obviously resentful of the intrusion.
‘How did you get in?’
Bernice held up a key dangling by a ribbon in her hand. ‘Ellie.’
Joan tried not to be alarmed at the fact of this spare key. But it did immediately suggest that Bernice could have let herself in whenever she liked. ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked, trying to sound curious rather than suspicious,
‘None of your business,’ said Bernice in an uppity tone that would have been comic in any other circumstances. She turned her head away in disdain before swinging around again to fix Joan with a look of undisguised hostility. ‘But then everything’s your bloody business, isn’t it, Joanie?’ Bernice was in such a brittle, dangerous mood that Joan knew better than to take the bait. ‘I came to say goodbye, if you must know.’ Bernie’s voice was hoarse. ‘To Ellie. And Jessie.’
‘But we don’t know what’s happened to Jess,’ Joan reminded her.
‘Jessie’s dead,’ said Bernice fiercely.
Joan felt a surge of panic. Was this a confession? Had Bernice gone to the hospital and persuaded Jessie to leave with her? And then what? Please God, do not let this be true. Here she was, all alone with Bernice late at night in a half-abandoned boarding house at the scene of a murder. In the moonlight she could still clearly see the vast bloodstain on the rug and the sinister spray on the wall. Joan had a flash from the performance of The Bacchae: Agave, in the grip of her madness, holding up her son’s bloodied head as a hunting trophy.
‘She’s dead?’ Joan repeated as calmly as she could manage.
‘That bastard killed her. Just like he killed Ellie.’
‘You mean Frankie?’
‘No. Ellie’s man.’ Bernice spat the word out.
‘What? Who are you talking
about?’
‘I don’t know.’ Bernice’s face softened into weeping. ‘She wouldn’t tell me.’
Joan decided it was time to come clean about what she knew, even if it meant risking Bernice’s aggression. ‘You mean her knight in shining armour?’
Bernice’s shock interrupted the flow of tears. ‘How did you … ?’
‘Jess told me. Last Sunday night. She asked me not to say anything. She told me …’ Joan hesitated for a moment. ‘She told me that you and Ellie were lovers.’
Bernice looked at her with a mix of horror and shame. ‘That’s a lie! Jessie is a liar!’ she shouted in a shrill spasm of anger.
Joan said nothing, fearful of provoking her, but in the event Bernice’s protest was short-lived, and she lapsed into silence. She stared at her hands, folded in her lap, as if too ashamed to face Joan.
‘It’s true,’ she whispered pitifully. ‘I loved her. We … we discovered something wonderful.’
‘But then she found someone else. A man.’
A sob broke again from Bernice’s throat. ‘Yes.’
‘How did you find out?’
‘She told me. He was going to rescue her, she said. Take her away.’
‘And abandon Ruby and Greta? And her husband? Surely not.’
‘She mentioned he was setting her up in a flat. Just for him and her. There may have been some mention of support for Ruby and Greta. I can’t be sure.’
‘What about you? You must have felt’—Joan hesitated—‘betrayed.’
Bernice’s face became ugly with another spasm of rage; perhaps at Joan, for daring to name her true feelings. ‘What would you know about it, anyway?’
Joan ignored this and pushed on. ‘Jessie also told me that you and Ellie had a terrible fight.’
Bernice shook her head furiously.
‘You’ve not been honest with me, Bernice. I need to know the truth.’
Bernice looked at her, alarmed.
‘I spoke to Mavis. Why didn’t you tell me she saw Ellie with a black eye that evening?’
Death in the Ladies' Goddess Club Page 16
