by Robert Gott
Tom made a small, involuntary noise, somewhere between a cough and a laugh.
‘That was not what I was expecting you to say.’
‘We were going to wait until you were fully recovered.’ He nodded towards the splint on Tom’s left hand. ‘But now that your sister and brother-in-law have moved out, we’d thought we’d approach now.’
‘How do you even know that Maude and Titus were staying with me?’
‘We’ve been watching you. In a desultory kind of way, you understand. Nothing round-the-clock or intrusive.’
Tom wanted to be outraged, but he liked Newman’s tone too much to challenge him. He was not at all what he expected a Military Intelligence man to be. He noticed the faintest odour of coconut in the air, and realised that it was coming from Benjamin Newman’s hair. He associated that pleasant smell with his grandfather, who’d kept his thick hair in order with Macassar oil.
‘We’ve sorted out the details with the air force wallahs, or the top wallahs, at any rate. You would have returned to work in a few weeks, but we’d like you to bring that forward. When I say we want you to work for us, we don’t want anyone in your section to know this. You will be Group Captain Thomas Mackenzie, as you were before, in your air force clobber, parked away in requisitions. You will, however, be reporting to Military Intelligence.’
‘Why?’
‘A not-unreasonable question. I’ll let Vincent explain.’
‘It’s delicate. There’s a man who has recently been posted to Victoria Barracks. His name is Flight Lieutenant Winslow Fazackerly.’
‘I’ve never heard the name before.’
‘No. He arrived soon after you went on leave. He comes with connections. Old Melbourne money. His father is a KC and a member of the Australia Club. His mother is related in some obscure but socially useful way to the Mountbattens. His sister lives in England, and is married to some toff. All in all, he’s pretty well set up and has managed to have, so far, a cosy war. He keeps to himself, and he presents as a decent bloke. He doesn’t lord it over anyone. He just goes about his job quietly and efficiently.’
‘There’s a big “but” waiting to come out of the gates, isn’t there?’
‘We want you to cultivate him, get to know him, gain his trust.’
‘Why?’
‘We think he’s a fifth columnist, which sounds melodramatic, but there it is.’
‘A Nazi sympathiser?’
‘Oddly, no. We think his loyalties are with Japan.’
‘How very peculiar. When do I start?’
Benjamin Newman and Vincent Deighton stood up.
‘Tomorrow is Thursday, which is an odd day to return to work,’ Newman said. ‘But we’d rather you didn’t wait until Monday.’
‘Tomorrow is good.’
‘Thank you, sir. A man named Tom Chafer is our immediate boss. He’ll meet you at 7.00 a.m, in the Office of Native Policy for Mandated Territory. It’s tucked away.’
‘I know where it is. This meeting with Chafer, it was already scheduled, wasn’t it?’
Benjamin Newman put his hat on.
‘Yes, it was. We weren’t expecting you to say no.’
On the way out, Newman said, ‘Oh, just one more thing, sir. When you meet Tom Chafer, you won’t like him, and the more you’ll get to know him, the less you’ll like him. That’s a simple fact and not a state secret.’
‘I’ve met Chafer, and the memory isn’t a rosy one.’
MEREDITH WILSON CARRIED a stepladder with her, and as she came to each tree she examined the low-hanging fruit, and then mounted the ladder to look at the higher fruit.
‘It’s strange,’ she said, ‘but after doing this a few times you get to know every single piece of fruit, and losing even one is upsetting. Isn’t that ridiculous?’
‘I’ve never really liked pears.’
‘These aren’t ready yet. If they were, I could convert you with a really good one, straight from the tree. But you’re not here to talk about fruit, Miss Lord.’
‘Can you tell me anything about Anthony Prescott?’
‘Not much. I stayed well out of all the nonsense. I’ve met him, and I can tell you where his orchard is. I didn’t like him. He was here one night, with Fisher, talking to Zac, or rather trying to get more money out of him. Prescott struck me as a bit of a thug. I was dismissed as irrelevant as soon as he realised my position. Only he wasn’t just dismissive — he was rude and aggressive. What upset me about that was that Zac didn’t leap to my defence. He should have thrown Prescott off the property, but at that stage, with Fisher in the room, he thought he was in the presence of God. Laughable. Prescott was Fisher’s main apostle, but I thought he was actually running the show.’
‘So Prescott believed that Fisher was a god?’
‘Not a god, Miss Lord. God himself. The Messiah come to Earth and made incarnate in the unimpressive body of Peter Fisher. This was a man who never bothered to shave properly. He missed bits and cut himself. You’d expect the Messiah to be presentable, wouldn’t you?’
Helen laughed.
‘I’d say that’s the minimum I’d expect,’ she said.
‘Zac had an answer for that, of course. The whole point was, he said, that God would choose to return as an ordinary man. Jesus was a lowly carpenter. He’s not going to come back as Cary Grant. That wouldn’t test anyone’s faith.’
‘How many people did Peter Fisher take in?’
‘Oh, dozens. He had quite a following. They must be a bit confused now. Fisher’s death puts a bit of a dent in his claim that he was immortal.’
Meredith climbed down from the ladder and faced Helen.
‘That was his claim, Miss Lord. Your incredulity is the proper response. None of this will make much sense until I’ve told you everything that Zac told me, and even then it will beggar belief. I have documents back in the house that will fill in the background. It’s fascinating, in a macabre sort of way, or it would be if it had remained in the past.’
Helen looked quizzical.
‘This is all about the past, Miss Lord, and a huckster who Peter Fisher claimed as his great-great-grandfather.’
‘A huckster?’
‘A conman, whose ridiculous claims have fallen out of history. When we get back to the house, I’ll introduce you to the Nunawading Messiah.’
Helen couldn’t contain a snigger of disbelief.
‘Those are two words that don’t feel like they belong together,’ she said.
‘And it doesn’t matter how often you repeat them, they still seem wrong. And yet in 1871 hundreds of people fell hook, line, and sinker for the first Peter Fisher.’
HELEN LORD PASSED a leather-bound document case to Joe. She’d told him about her visit to Fisher’s place and that she’d been shoved hard from behind. She’d also relayed her impressions of Meredith Wilson.
‘I like her. It must be disappointing when you discover that your husband is a nong, even when he comes to realise this himself. I’ve read the documents she gave me. They are bizarre. They originally belonged to Peter Fisher. Meredith doesn’t know how Zac came to have them. She thinks he may have taken them from Fisher’s house at some stage. And I don’t understand why Fisher kept them. You’ll see what I mean when you read them.’
There were many yellowing and fragile pages from newspapers, which Joe put on the desk in front of him.
‘These have been handed down in Fisher’s family,’ Helen said. She leaned across and took two of the reports from the pile.
‘Start with these two. They give you the gist.’
Joe picked up an article headed ‘The Nunawading Messiah. Extraordinary disclosures’. It was taken from The Age, and dated 14 July 1871:
Considerable excitement has been raised in Nunawading, Oakleigh, and that neighbourhood, during the last few days, by revelations made as
to the impostures practised by one Fisher, a charcoal burner, in Nunawading, who claims to be the Messiah. One of his dupes, named Andrew Wilson, has charged him with obtaining money under false pretences, and the case was on the list for hearing at the Oakleigh Court of Petty Sessions on Saturday last.
Joe looked up from the paper.
‘Fisher and Wilson? So Peter Fisher is a descendant of this Messiah Fisher. What about Wilson? Is he related to this Wilson here?’
‘That’s something that might be important. I don’t know. It could be coincidence, although farming families do tend to stay in one place for generations. It gets more intriguing, believe me. Read on.’
The following is a statement made to our reporter on Saturday evening by Wilson in the presence of his wife and a number of his acquaintances:–
‘I am a member of the Wesleyan body and one of those who look for the coming of the Messiah again as a man, and not in the clouds. For ten years or so past the claims of Fisher to be the Messiah have been talked of in Nunawading, and about six years ago I was led to communicate with him, with a view of ascertaining whether he was really the Messiah. Shortly after I came in contact with him, I saw enough to convince me that he was not the Messiah. I now look upon him as a rank impostor, but he was certainly very lucky in the prophecies by which he obtained his present ascendancy over the minds of many people. There are considerably more than a hundred who believe in him implicitly — most of them residing in Nunawading, although there are some in Prahran, Ballarat and other places. He calls himself the Son of God, Jesus Christ — and they all believe that he is. He says he will never die, and that none of those who believe in him will ever die, nor their wives and families, provided they are staunch in their belief. He does not mean only that their souls will never die, but that they will never die on this earth. All who follow him believe this, and that the millennium has commenced during which the saints are to live until they are translated. When I came to have faith in him, I believed that I would never die, nor my wife nor any of my family. Once a child of mine fell ill. Fisher said, “The child cannot die, Wilson. Only believe.” Then he came to my house, poured some wine over the child’s face, and prayed. The child did get well, and that made my belief stronger than ever. However, Fisher’s mother-in-law died, and this set people enquiring. Fisher said it was a judgement on her, sent direct from him, and that he had struck her with a paralytic stroke which killed her. I asked him why, and he said, “She is gone the way of Ananias and Sapphira. She told me she had no money, but I knew she had, and after she died, £100 was found secreted in the house.”’
‘I don’t understand this bit about Ananias and Sapphira.’
‘Neither do I. Does it matter, do you think?’
‘This is so strange, I need to know. It’s biblical, so maybe Guy’s Catholic education will help. I know it’s ridiculous, but I can’t finish reading this until I know. He’s at your house. I’ll telephone him.’
Ros Lord answered the telephone and said that Guy was working in the garden. As soon as he came on the line, Joe said, ‘Who are Ananias and Sapphira?’
‘I can honestly say that no one has ever asked me that question before.’
‘Do you know who they are?’
‘Keep your shirt on, Joe. Yes, I know who they are. Has this got something to do with the deaths in Nunawading?’
‘Yes, Guy.’ Joe’s impatience was evident.
‘All right. The story of Ananias and Sapphira is in the Acts of the Apostles, which is why you’re not familiar with it, you heathen. Ananias sold some land and donated the proceeds to Peter, only he didn’t donate the lot. He kept some for himself. Peter wasn’t happy when he found out, and told Ananias that he’d lied to the Holy Spirit, and Ananias just dropped dead. Then Mrs Ananias, that’s Sapphira, arrived, and she told the same lie about the money, and she dropped dead. It’s a heart-warming story, isn’t it? Does that help solve your baffling mystery?’
‘One small corner of it.’
Joe went back to reading the newspaper article:
‘Fisher said once that a man who had scoffed at him would be struck in a mysterious manner in a year or two. Strange to say, the man went insane afterwards, and was sent to the Yarra Bend. Once I had two cases in the court. Fisher told me I could not possibly lose them for he would influence the mind of the judge with his power. Sure enough I won both the cases. Afterwards, Fisher came to me and said, “Wilson, I told you how it would be. When you thought Judge Pohlman was speaking, it was me. I entered into his spirit and spoke through him.” All these things made me believe most implicitly. Fisher looked upon me as one of the faithfullest among his disciples, and indeed I had not a particle of doubt. He let me more and more into the secrets of the religion. Milk, he said, was for babes, and strong meat for men. While men who were yet young in the faith were only allowed one wife, those more advanced might have several. Fisher himself lives with three women, who are sisters, and their father is one his devoutest believers. There is a fourth sister who is married. Fisher says he is bound to have her too, and that her husband will die when he wills it.
When I became a regular member of the church, Fisher hinted that I would have to show my faith by giving him something. I gave him £10 at once, and for a considerable time paid him £1 a month. All together he has had about £35 out of me, and it is on account of this that I proceed against him for false pretences. I can tell you all about his villainy, and I will. Before putting myself away from his connection, I openly denounced him in the chapel at his house in Nunawading. I called him an impostor. He said he was quite willing to submit the question to the Church of the First-born. The meeting of the chapel came to nothing, except that Fisher’s party all affirmed their unshaken belief. Afterwards I learned that they expelled me from the Church, one only of the “apostles” voting in my favour.’
‘How completely extraordinary,’ Joe said. ‘So Peter Fisher modelled himself on this Fisher and declared himself the new Messiah, and people actually fell for it.’
‘They fell for it, and they gave him money. But how does this end in four people dead?’
‘One, or more, disgruntled apostles?’
‘Read the other articles, Joe. There are details that are missing from the first article. They’re all worth reading. They’d be entertaining in a lurid sort of way, except that they’re a depressing catalogue of human gullibility and predation.’
Joe read, with mounting incredulity, three more articles that detailed Fisher’s extraordinary claims, and the accusations against him, not just of polygamy, but of seducing away from her husband one of three sisters. He named them Truth, Justice, and Prudence. He fathered eight children with these women, according to the account, and blithely overrode complaints that the Bible was adamant that a man may not take another man’s wife by simply declaring, ‘The Lord may do as he pleases.’
‘Meredith Wilson said that Peter Fisher had declared himself the Messiah?’ Joe asked.
‘And that he was the descendant of this Fisher, whose name was Jimmy, by the way.’
‘I didn’t know Messiahs had descendants. I thought you either were or you weren’t.’
‘Oh, Jimmy Fisher wasn’t born the Messiah. Somewhere among the other documents, we’re told that a woman lost her baby and that Fisher had a dream that the baby’s spirit had entered a cabbage in Fisher’s garden, and that if he ate the cabbage the spirit would enter him and turn him into the Messiah.’
Joe laughed.
‘I suppose,’ he said, ‘it’s no more ridiculous than the Ananias and Sapphira guff, or that Christians believe in a three-person god, one of which is a pigeon. They call it a dove because it sounds classier, but a dove is a pigeon no matter what colour it is.’
‘Peter Fisher and his dupes, to use the newspaper expression, seem to have run their sect using the 1871 sect as a template, and something went horribly wrong.’
Helen turned pale.
‘I know what you’re going to suggest, Joe. You can’t go under cover, not after …’
‘This is completely different, Helen, and it’s exactly why you formed your agency.’
‘Joe, one of these people took an axe to a baby. What would they do to you? I can’t ask you to do this.’
‘I’m volunteering. No, I’m insisting.’
There was silence between them. Helen stood up and left the room. She’d felt on the edge of tears. It had never been her intention to put Joe at risk, and she realised that she’d begun her business not just with optimism, but with naivety. Of course a private inquiry agency would involve personal risk, and of course Joe was right that the only way to find out about the Church of the First Born was to get inside it. Her contact with Meredith Wilson made it impossible for her to assume that role. Meredith had seemed hostile to the Church, but her contact with it would make Helen’s anonymity insecure. Joe had interviewed Emilio Barbero’s landlady, but her connection to the Church was tenuous, almost non-existent. Helen knew, too, that allowing Joe to undertake the infiltration would be an expression of trust in his abilities. She calmed herself and returned to Joe’s office. Before she could say anything, Joe said, ‘We need Guy to go with me.’
‘What about his …?’
‘I need someone I can trust, and I trust Guy absolutely. His illness might work in our favour. Charlatans like these people like nothing better than performing miracles, and having someone to play with who has come to them for a cure is perfect. It also gives us what looks like a legitimate excuse to approach them, and Guy knows his way around the Bible. That, I imagine, will prove useful.’
Helen nodded, but it was a reluctant nod of approval.
5
THE OFFICE OF Native Policy for Mandated Territories was difficult to find, and when you did find it there was nothing on the door to suggest that you were in the right place. Victoria Barracks had begun to resemble a Piranesi drawing with its confusion of temporary offices, some of them thrown up in sections of corridors. Finding your way around the old building had been bad enough, but after four years of functioning as the heart of Australia’s military management of the war, and housing the War Cabinet and its myriad functionaries, it was now a rabbit warren. It was home to at least one of the branches of Military Intelligence. There may have been others that Tom Mackenzie didn’t know about, although he did know that several units operated out of Brisbane. He suspected that the Netherlands East Indies Force was a cover, but he didn’t know for sure. At 7.00 am precisely, Tom knocked on what he knew to be the correct door.
