by Robert Gott
In the car on the way back to Russell Street, it was Constable Forbes who broke the silence.
‘Meredith Wilson is an impressive person.’
‘She is.’
‘I don’t think we should eliminate her as a suspect, sir.’
Forbes was driving. Titus looked at his lean profile. He had done precisely that — he had eliminated her, and he was discomposed that this young man had correctly surmised this. Alexander Forbes, he thought, has the makings of a great detective. Maude needed to meet him.
TOM MACKENZIE WASN’T looking forward to Tuesday morning. The first thing he needed to do, to get it out of the way, was report to Tom Chafer and give him the number of the house Winslow had visited. Chafer, as Tom knew he would, berated him for not following Winslow after he’d left the house.
‘Were you just too lazy to do it?’
‘I think there should be a “sir” at the end of that question, don’t you?’
Chafer curled his lip and refused to oblige.
‘I’ll do your job for you, shall I,’ he said, ‘and find out who lives at that address?’
‘It would be nice to see you do something.’
Chafer’s face turned red, but he didn’t take the bait.
‘Come back here at 2.00 pm,’ he said quietly, and managed to inject venom into every banal syllable.
When Tom got to his office, Winslow was already there. Tom couldn’t detect any change in his demeanour. They talked about that morning’s newspapers and settled down to the necessary drudgery that was requisitions. They had lunch together, and Winslow talked about his love of Japanese art. Tom had never heard of Hokusai or Ukiyo-e. Winslow said he’d bring in some prints he’d collected.
At 2.00 pm, Tom knocked on Chafer’s door. He was aware that he’d offended him earlier, but this didn’t worry him. In fact, he was looking forward to offending him some more.
‘Come in.’
Chafer was seated behind his desk, his thin arms folded, his face set into a smug rictus of self-satisfaction.
‘We were right to have our doubts about Fazackerly. The woman he visited is married to a Japanese.’
‘So?’
‘She’s been most cooperative. She’s been visiting her husband, and we made it clear to her that his life could become difficult unless she told us why Flight Lieutenant Fazackerly had paid her a visit.’
Chafer didn’t invite Tom to sit down.
‘And?’
‘Fazackerly has found a way to make contact with people in Japan.’
‘I don’t know what that means.’
‘Neither do we, exactly. That’s where you come in.’
Chafer pushed an envelope towards Tom.
‘Inside that envelope is the name of Katherine Hart’s husband — Katherine Hart is the woman Fazackerly visited — and other information you’ll need when you get to Loveday. It includes your travel permits and a sealed letter to the commanding officer at Loveday camp.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘You will be flying to Adelaide in a couple of hours and taking the train to Loveday tomorrow morning. There are persons of interest in Loveday who know a lot more about Fazackerly than he wants us to know.’
Tom felt his stomach lurch. This was the last thing he wanted to do. Following Winslow had been relatively benign, and he’d hated doing that, but this, this was spying on him in a profound and damaging way. When Winslow found out that Tom had done this — and he would find out — the excuse that ‘I was just doing my job’ wouldn’t wash. No friendship could survive such surveillance.
‘When you go back to your office, tell Fazackerly that you’re being sent to Mildura to sort out a local fuck-up. You’ll only be gone for two days.’
‘What if he checks?’
‘Why would he? If he does check, that will be revealing, won’t it?’
Chafer opened a ledger on his desk. This was a soundless dismissal. Tom took the envelope and left.
AT THE VERY moment that Tom Mackenzie entered Tom Chafer’s office, Guy Kirkham, miles from Victoria Barracks in the distant Dandenong hills, died. It had been a slow, drawn-out death, and he took with him information that, had he had it in time, and had he been able to pass it on, might have saved Zachary Wilson’s life. As it was, it all came too late. In the final moments of his suffering he thought the pointlessness of his death was a just punishment for the death of the young soldier in New Guinea. Guy, who’d known that he shouldn’t have been driving, had fallen asleep at the wheel of a Jeep. It had overturned, and Private Harry Compton, aged just 20, had been killed. In the closing of his life, it was this young man’s name that Guy Kirkham uttered.
The blow to the back of Guy’s head had been delivered with such force that it had cracked his skull. He’d remained unconscious for more than three hours. He’d come to briefly and passed out again as the competing agonies of his head injuries and sharp pain emanating from his neck overwhelmed him.
Abraham watched him, pleased with his work. They were in a thick forest high up in the Dandenongs, well away from any track. The air was damp, and smelled of eucalyptus and leaf litter. It had taken Abraham a long time to find the right tree. He’d been looking for a tree with a forked branch close enough to the ground to enable him to manoeuvre Guy’s neck into the fork. He hadn’t been gentle. He’d lugged Guy’s unconscious form up a steep slope, and he was in no mood to be careful. The skin on Guy’s neck had been broken, and a sharp protrusion on one of the branches dug deeply into his flesh. Guy’s feet were touching the ground, but his weight was borne by his wedged neck. To secure him to the tree, Abraham had tied a cord firmly around his waist and the trunk of the tree.
After a while he grew bored with waiting for Guy to regain consciousness, and threw a cup of cold water into his face. Guy’s eyes opened. He tried to move his head, but it was trapped somehow. He seemed to be standing up. And he was cold. Very cold. He could smell and taste blood, and in the grey dawn light he saw Abraham standing in front of him.
‘I named you Absalom,’ he said. ‘I knew as soon as I saw you that this is how it would end.’
‘Where …?’
‘Oh, no one knows where you are. No one will ever find your body. Not even the Master knows. My job is to protect him from people like you. Your blood is on my hands, not his. But he warned you. He warns us all that there will be a reckoning for unbelievers. You’ve arrived at yours.’
Guy tried to move his arms, but they were held by the rope that bound him to the tree. Slowly the world around him came into focus, and despite the intense pain in his head, he began to make sense of his predicament.
‘You killed Peter Fisher, and his wife and the baby.’
Abraham approached Guy. Their faces were almost on the same level.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Fisher killed his wife and child, and, like the coward that he was, he took his own life.’
Abraham ran his hand through his beard as if he was considering whether or not to say any more. He couldn’t help himself.
‘I delivered retribution to the young Italian boy. The Master thought he could convince him to join us.’ Here he laughed. ‘Well, he did join us, for half a day. He walked all the way from Fisher’s farm to the Master’s orchard. He’d come to see Justice. He was quite open about it. He said he wanted to speak with her. It was Justice’s unclean time, and she was in the hut. He was told it was forbidden for a man to visit the hut. He was young, stupid, and he’d walked too far to resist the temptation. He pretended to leave the property, but doubled back and entered the hut. He stayed in there for an hour. I know this, because I knew he’d return and I was waiting nearby. Justice didn’t cry out and I’m forbidden to enter the hut, so I waited for him to come out. When he did, I strangled him. Simple as that. My hands are strong, and his body wasn’t yet a man’s body. Justice didn’t know that I’d do
ne this, and neither did the master. Justice didn’t speak of the young man’s transgression. Perhaps all they did was talk. It doesn’t matter. When he crossed the threshold into the women’s hut, he committed a sin so grave that expiation could only come with death. Oh, I prayed for his soul, Absalom. I prayed and prayed. I took him down to Fisher’s farm and hung him up there. What sort of miracle would Fisher generate to explain the presence of a hanged man on his porch? Fisher couldn’t perform a miracle. All he could do, all he could ever do, was wreak havoc. He must have thought that he could kill Truth and the Master’s son. It wasn’t Fisher’s son. He was sterile. The Master made him so. He must have thought he could kill them and blame it on the Italian bloke. That might have worked if he hadn’t lost his nerve and blown himself up. Why don’t you say something?’
Guy was incapable of saying anything. He began to drift in and out of consciousness, and nothing Abraham was saying made any sense to him. The old man came close to Guy, leaned in, and whispered in his ear.
‘I’m going to kill you. You have betrayed the man who is your father, and, like the first Absalom, you must pay with your life. And the Master, like the first David, will grieve for you.’
He began to walk around the tree, intoning lines from a Bible he held:
And the king commanded Joab and Abishai and Ittai, saying deal gently for my sake with the young man, even with Absalom. So the people went into the field against Israel and the battle was in the wood of Ephraim; for the battle was there scattered over the face of all the country; and the wood devoured more people that day than the sword devoured. And Absalom met the servants of David. And Absalom rode upon a mule and the mule went under the thick boughs of a great oak, and his head caught hold of the oak, and he was taken up between the heaven and the earth; and the mule that was under him went away. And a certain man saw it and told Joab, and said, Behold I saw Absalom hanged in an oak. And Joab said unto the man that told him, And behold, thou sawest him, and why didst thou not smite him to the ground? And I would have given thee ten shekels of silver, and a girdle. And the man said unto Joab, though I should receive a thousand shekels of silver in mine hand, yet would I not put forth mine hand against the king’s son: for in our hearing the king charged thee and Abishai and Ittai, saying, Beware that none touch the young man Absalom.
He paused in his reading, walked a few paces away from Guy, and picked something up from the ground. Guy, groggy and nauseated, couldn’t make out what it was. He returned to Guy.
‘Just for today, I am Joab.’
He tore Guy’s tunic from his shoulders so that it fell to his waist, held there by the rope. The air was so cold against his skin that for a moment Guy’s senses returned. He saw Abraham take three long nails, new and gleaming, from the pocket of his tunic. He placed the Bible on the ground, so that now he held the nails in one hand and a hammer in the other. He came to Guy and touched his chest in three places, pressing the skin with his finger.
Then said Joab, I may not tarry thus with thee. And he took three darts in his hand, and thrust them through the heart of Absalom, while he was yet alive in the midst of the oak.
It was the third nail, hammered through the bone and into the heart, that killed Guy Kirkham. His body convulsed, and then it was suddenly still, his eyes wide. ‘Harry Compton,’ he’d whispered.
Abraham heard it as a meaningless sound. He waited a few moments to make sure that Guy had died. He ought to have taken him down and buried him under rocks, as the biblical Absalom had been buried, but this was too much effort. Finding a tree with a forked branch in it, even if it hadn’t been an oak, had been effort enough. No. The body could stay tied to the tree until it fell apart. In summer, a fire might go through there and remove all trace of him.
CLARA DAWSON SAT with Helen and Joe in the Helen Lord and Associates office. As a doctor she’d seen dead bodies, and been present when patients had died, but the ghastly sight of Zachary Wilson hanging from the window bars in that grim prison had upset her deeply, and in an unexpected way. When she’d left Inspector Lambert’s office she’d begun to feel an unwelcome and, she knew, irrational creep of anger directed at him. He was blaming himself, and Clara had reassured him that no one believed him responsible.
However, as she’d walked from Russell Street to East Melbourne, she realised that she did in fact blame Titus for Zachary Wilson’s death. He’d arrested him, after all, and he’d done so without having any real evidence to justify it. It had been an expedient, crowd-mollifying arrest. The more she thought about it, the angrier she became. By the time she’d finished telling Helen and Joe about Wilson’s suicide, she was unequivocal in her condemnation of Inspector Lambert. Joe tried to defend the arrest, but Clara dismissed his defence with a withering claim that he had a policeman’s brain, and that that wasn’t a compliment. Joe blushed, and then blushed even more deeply as he worried the initial blush might have revealed his attraction to Clara. She saw that she’d embarrassed him, and mistakenly assumed that it was simply a result of the insult. Her anger was still too hot to allow for an apology. Helen came to Joe’s defence.
‘Do I have a policeman’s brain, Clar?’
‘No, you have a detective’s brain.’
‘All right,’ Joe said. ‘Clearly, as one of the lesser primates, I have nothing to contribute, so I’ll leave you to it.’
He stood up and left the office before Helen could stop him. As soon as he’d closed the door, he felt foolish. Clara would interpret his departure as a childish tantrum, and this would lower her opinion of him even further. No wonder she preferred Guy’s company. He was amusing, and unburdened by a ‘policeman’s brain’. The thought of Guy drove his small humiliation in front of Clara from his mind. The dread he’d felt when he’d left Guy on Monday morning rose in him again. He didn’t believe in telepathy or any spiritual nonsense, but he couldn’t suppress the feeling that something was terribly wrong.
‘Is Joe often petulant?’ Clara asked.
‘No, Clar, he isn’t, but you caught him at a vulnerable time.’
Clara looked sceptical.
‘He’s worried about Guy.’
‘I’ll apologise to him later. Guy will be fine. Despite everything that’s wrong with him, he can look after himself.’
Clara began to calm down.
‘I suppose the “policeman’s brain” crack was a bit much, although it’s interesting that Joe immediately assumed it was pejorative.’
‘It was the tone, Clar, as you know perfectly well.’
‘I’m just so pissed off about Zachary Wilson’s suicide. Why didn’t someone at that fucking jail notice how desperate he was?’
There was no answer to that. Clara told Helen that Inspector Lambert intended visiting Meredith Wilson to break the news of his death in person.
‘It’s decent of him, I suppose, but it’s the least he can do.’
‘I’m sorry, Clar, but I’m not blaming Inspector Lambert for Wilson’s death.’
Clara ignored this.
‘He has a new favourite: a Constable Alexander Forbes.’
‘Oh? Someone else with a policeman’s brain?’
Clara managed a laugh.
‘Actually, Helen, he’s an impressive young man, and he’s a bit gorgeous, and sharp. Very sharp.’
‘How very interesting. I can’t wait to meet this paragon.’
‘Maybe you should poach him. Offer him more money.’
‘I’m quite happy with Joe, thank you.’
Clara was about to say that Alexander Forbes was a lot smarter than Joe, but thought better of it. Antagonising Helen was the last thing she wanted to do. Helen’s attraction to Joe was a mystery, but attraction was always a mystery.
11
WINSLOW FAZACKERLY KNEW that Tom Mackenzie wasn’t telling him the truth when he announced that he’d been sent to Mildura to sort out some problem with requisitions.
He knew that no such problems existed. Tom couldn’t possibly know about the note from Torajiro-san, could he? To be in the least quizzical about Tom’s story would be a mistake, so he simply commiserated with him about how tedious the train would be, not to mention the accommodation.
Tom left Victoria Barracks at midday. Winslow waited a full hour before he took the small square of paper with the address and the initials from his pocket. He turned it over and over through his fingers. The address was in Dalgety Street in St Kilda. He didn’t know that part of Melbourne very well, but he could get there easily by tram. He’d have to go home first and change into mufti. He didn’t want to turn up at a risky rendezvous in uniform. And he did intend to turn up, despite all his instincts warning him against it. He’d lain awake for most of the previous night, worrying about Etsuko. He had to know. He simply had to know. What if the news was terrible? What if she’d died? This thought had so disturbed him that he’d paced his bedroom and made his decision to visit the address in St Kilda.
WHEN JOE RETURNED to the office, Clara had left. He felt sheepish, but Helen pre-empted any apology by saying that Clara had been out of line and that she would have walked out too, if it had been her on the other end of Clara’s barb.
‘She contradicted herself as soon as you’d left. Apparently, Inspector Lambert has a new trainee. He’s very young. Constable Alexander Forbes. She was very impressed with his policeman’s brain — and with the head that contains it, I might add.’
‘Still, I shouldn’t be so thin-skinned.’
‘Also, she’s so angry with Inspector Lambert that you were a convenient displacement target.’
‘I think I was stung because I feel like Guy is doing the job I’m supposed to be doing. And I’m worried about him.’
‘They know you’re expecting him to return, Joe. Look, why don’t you drive out there and pay him a visit? It would be a perfectly reasonable thing for a friend to do. If he feels like he’s in any danger, just bring him home. And it might be a good idea to have a look at Fisher’s farm. There might be something there that I missed. In fact, I’m sure there’s something there that I missed.’
