The Orchard Murders

by Robert Gott

  ‘Have you ever been to Japan, Mr Kent?’

  ‘I didn’t learn to speak Japanese in this godforsaken country, Mr Fazackerly. I lived for many years in Kyushu. Satsuma pottery, that was my trade. It’s all dried up now, of course. I know people who’ve taken a hammer to such beautiful pieces it would break your heart. Do you like Satsuma ware?’

  All Winslow wanted was information about his wife. He didn’t want to make small talk with someone whose loyalties, were they known, would attract the attention of Military Intelligence. He regretted his decision to come to this flat, and wanted to end the conversation.

  ‘I have no particular interest in Japanese pottery, Mr Kent. I believe you have information about my wife’s health. That’s all I’m interested in.’

  Kent’s jovial demeanour evaporated.

  ‘All right, Mr Fazackerly, we’ll dispense with the pleasantries. I do have information about Etsuko, but I’m afraid this is going to have to be a quid pro quo situation.’

  ‘Before we go any further, how could you possibly know anything about a particular woman in Hiroshima?’

  ‘Ah, that is one of those strange coincidences that war sometimes throws up.’

  ‘I don’t believe in coincidence, at least not in this case.’

  Clive Kent wheezed out a small laugh.

  ‘Well, coincidence isn’t the right word. Luck might be closer, and in some ways, Mr Fazackerly, to be perfectly frank, it’s a piece of luck that is now more than six months old, so I can’t tell you anything about your wife’s health as it is now. I can only tell you how it stood six months ago.’

  This was reassuring to Winslow, not because it eased his fears about Etsuko, but because it made Kent’s story more plausible. Being in Kent’s presence began to feel less like a trap. He relaxed a little. Kent noticed that Winslow unclenched his fingers and leaned back in his chair.

  ‘Go on,’ Winslow said.

  ‘It really isn’t as extraordinary as it sounds. Your wife was ill and needed medication that is impossible to get in Japan.’

  ‘What do you mean by ill?’

  ‘Oh, some female thing. Something uterine.’

  His face suggested that he found this distasteful.

  ‘She was experiencing a lot of pain, apparently. I don’t know. Women’s bits are a mystery to me.’

  ‘That’s very vague.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry. Let me continue. There was a young man who lived near your wife’s family. He’s a naval officer. Now this is where it gets a bit odd. Your wife wrote you a letter in Japanese, telling you what was wrong and asking you for help. It’s not just about her health. There’s other personal stuff in it. I’m sorry to say it’s a sort of farewell letter. She gave this letter to the naval officer, obviously never expecting that you’d receive it. I imagine she did it in the spirit that you’d put a letter in a bottle and throw it overboard. She knew that this man was about to do duty in the Pacific, and just the thought that the letter would leave Japan must have given her some comfort. There would have been no expectation that it would ever reach you. Why would it? For a start, there was no guarantee that this man wouldn’t just screw it up and put it in the bin. However, he didn’t. He put it in the pocket of his uniform, and maybe he forgot about it. He was captured by the Americans, and he was interrogated by them. He was cooperative. Japanese prisoners are surprisingly cooperative. You’d understand their character. To be captured is to be humiliated and to lose all connection with Japan. Surrendering means surrendering all your rights, not that Japanese prisoners know much about the Geneva Convention. The Americans had the letter translated, but didn’t think it was of any real importance. They actually returned it to the man before sending him on to Cowra. And from there it made its way to Loveday, and here we are.’

  ‘How? How did it get from Cowra to Loveday?’

  ‘That I don’t know. I do know it wasn’t officially sanctioned. The fact is, Mr Fazackerly, I have the letter. What I don’t have is any means to get a reply to your wife. I’m afraid I’m not that well connected.’

  He reached into the voluminous jacket he was wearing and withdrew a piece of paper.

  ‘I’m not going to lie to you and pretend I haven’t read Etsuko’s letter. I have. Reading Japanese isn’t one of my strong points, but I got the gist. It’s a lovely letter. Very touching.’

  The thought that this man had run his eyes over his wife’s words was as disgusting to Winslow as if he’d run his hands over her body.

  ‘Show me Etsuko’s letter.’

  ‘I want you to do me a very, very small favour in return.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I want this war to be over as much as the next man, Mr Fazackerly, and I think we can agree that Japan is rather on the back foot. I have tremendous sympathy for those men in Cowra. They must feel so isolated, so cut off, perhaps permanently cut off, from everything that matters to them as men, as people. I believe I can get a letter into Cowra. Nothing seditious, you understand. I have no wish to foment any kind of dissent. I’m talking about sentiment, not politics.’

  ‘Since when has blackmail been sentimental?’

  Clive Kent smiled.

  ‘It is true. I am blackmailing you, and to use a letter from your wife is despicable. I am not a despicable man, Mr Fazackerly, but the simple truth is my Japanese isn’t sophisticated enough to draft the letter I want to write, and so I must, as it were, stoop to conquer.’

  Winslow wanted to leave, but he also wanted to hold in his hands something that Etsuko had held in hers.

  ‘What is it you want me to write for you?’

  Kent, with some effort, rose from the chair and handed Winslow a piece of paper. On it was written a short passage: Soldiers of Japan, we want you to know that there are in this country people who honour and respect you, people who would welcome you into our cities, our homes, our hearts. You are not the enemy we despise or fear.

  ‘You see, Mr Fazackerly, these are just a few words that will fit on a scrap of paper. They are not a manifesto or a call to arms. My only hope is that they might help one young man find solace in his capture, especially as he would know that his country has abandoned him and won’t welcome him home after the war. He should have killed himself, not accepted the humiliation of capture. You see what I mean about sentiment.’

  Winslow read the words again. He thought they were indeed sentimental and foolish.

  ‘Who shall I say this note is from?’

  ‘A friend.’

  Kent gave Winslow a cigarette paper, a book to rest it on, and a sharpened pencil.

  ‘Can you make it fit on this?’

  ‘I think so.’

  When he’d finished, the cigarette paper was crowded with characters, and he gave it to Kent, who read it, and took tobacco from a pouch and rolled a cigarette with it. He held it up to the light to examine it.

  ‘The prisoners in Cowra are treated well. They are allowed cigarettes.’

  ‘I would like my wife’s letter, please.’

  He stood up. Kent crossed to the front door and opened it.

  ‘The letter will be delivered to your house. I couldn’t risk having it here, in case you turned out to be a violent man who would simply take it from me. I assure you it will be there. I wouldn’t lie to you. You know where I live. I will make a phone call, and it will be waiting for you when you get home.’

  Winslow was torn between wanting to hurry home and wanting to find the cigarette, which Kent had put in his pocket, and crush it. At least, he thought, I won’t have to read Etsuko’s words in this man’s presence. Suddenly he couldn’t bear the sound of Kent’s wheezing, and he left the flat. The air outside felt pure and healthy, and he set out for his house in South Melbourne. When he reached it, half an hour later, he noticed that the front gate had been left open. He walked to the front door and looked down.
In the darkness, the corner of a white piece of paper stood out from where it had been pushed under the door. Had Kent actually been telling the truth? Had he kept his word after all? Winslow opened the door and picked up the folded paper. He went into the living room and switched on the light. Tom Chafer was sitting there, his legs crossed, in an armchair. Chafer said nothing. Winslow unfolded the piece of paper. It was blank.

  ‘Did you really believe that a letter from your wife would get from Japan to you? Are you really that stupid, Fazackerly?’

  As he said this, two men appeared in the doorway behind Winslow. Before he knew what was happening, his hands had been secured behind his back with handcuffs.

  ‘You’re a traitor, Fazackerly. I don’t expect they’ll hang you, but they’ll certainly put you in prison, where you belong.’

  TOM MACKENZIE HAD read the material he’d been given on Loveday internment camp, but he hadn’t been prepared for the camp’s size. Given that there were more than 5,000 men interned there, he supposed he ought to have been. The amount of land under cultivation around and within the camp was impressive. It didn’t look at all grim, although being separated from their wives and families must have been terrible for the Germans, Italians, and Japanese held here.

  The running of Loveday was a source of pride for its administrators. Perhaps it was partly propaganda, although the information provided to Tom had come from internal documents and briefings. The camp was run according to the dictates of the Geneva Convention, and inmates were encouraged to work and were paid a small wage for their labour. There were surly and unco-operative internees, some of whom adhered unapologetically to their fascist or National Socialist beliefs. The majority, however, found that work helped create an illusion of normality — and the work was plentiful. Loveday produced large quantities of raw opium from its poppy crop. The morphine that quelled the cries of a wounded soldier in New Guinea, or somewhere in the Pacific, had probably begun as a poppy head picked by an interned man at Loveday. There was the daisy crop to harvest for its pyrethrum, guayule for latex, and every kind of vegetable, some for food and some for seeds. There was a piggery and a large chook run. Loveday was a business, and Loveday turned a profit. It was, in effect, a small town, policed by 1,500 army personnel. It had sportsfields and a golf course, neither of which extinguished the misery of internment, misery that crept up on men with the awful persistence of the sand drifts that threatened to smother Loveday’s crops.

  Yokito Torajiro spoke excellent, if accented, English. Tom Mackenzie walked with him around the perimeter of a grassless square in Camp 14. Japanese internees played baseball here. No game was in progress. Mr Torajiro was polite, and acknowledged without demur that he’d known Winslow Fazackerly for many years, and that he knew him because of his marriage to Etsuko.

  ‘Did you like Mr Fazackerly?’

  ‘He was a good man, I think, but …’

  ‘But?’

  ‘But you can’t become Japanese by marrying a Japanese person.’

  Winslow had been honest in his acknowledgement that there would always be distance between him and the Japanese people he occasionally met. There was something, however, in Mr Torajiro’s tone that made Tom think his disapproval of Winslow ran deep, much deeper than perhaps Winslow knew. Tom wasn’t sure what questions to ask Mr Torajiro, because as he walked with him he realised he wasn’t entirely sure why he was there. He’d been well briefed on Loveday, but had been given no guidance about how to proceed with the two men whose names he’d been given — Yokito Torajiro and Toshiro Akiyama, who was Katherine Hart’s husband. Was Tom Chafer setting him up to fail? He wouldn’t put it past him.

  ‘What’s life like here, Mr Torajiro?’

  ‘Survivable.’

  Yokito Torajiro stopped and ran his hand over his mottled bald head.

  ‘Life is short,’ he said. ‘It should be better than this. It should be more than survivable, don’t you think?’

  ‘Are you treated well?’

  ‘This is not my home. I was taken from my home. I am fed. I work. I can move around, but I am not permitted to leave. This is a prison, but I committed no crime.’

  Tom became impatient.

  ‘Would you rather this camp was run the way the Japanese run their camps?’

  ‘Are you asking me to be grateful simply because my jailers aren’t as brutal as some of my countrymen? Should I say thank you to the soldier more than half my age who watches me and tells me what I can and cannot do?’

  ‘Surely you must know how Japanese soldiers treat the citizens of the places they occupy.’

  ‘Of course I do.’ Mr Torajiro’s voice was sharp with anger. ‘I haven’t lived in Japan for more than 50 years. It is not my home. My home is in Melbourne. I haven’t invaded anyone. I haven’t treated anyone cruelly. I am guilty only of being Japanese. My face, my body, my ancestors — these are my crimes.’

  Tom felt disinclined to continue this line of conversation.

  ‘You wrote to Mr Fazackerly, is that right?’

  ‘I have no loyalty to Winslow Fazackerly. I wrote what I was told to write.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Mr Torajiro laughed.

  ‘Why did they send someone so naive all this way?’

  This was beginning to make hideous sense to Tom.

  ‘Someone told you what to write? Who?’

  ‘Oh, it was very formal. I was called into an office in the administration building. There was a military man there, a colonel, I think, and a civilian was with him — a very, very fat man who spoke terrible Japanese. They handed me a note and told me to translate it into Japanese. I didn’t really have a choice if I wanted my life here to remain tolerable. I was told, too, that Toshiro Akiyama’s wife, who is an Australian, would suddenly find her life turned upside down if I didn’t cooperate. As I said, I have no loyalty to Winslow Fazackerly, so I did as I was told.’

  ‘And what did you write?’

  ‘It was a note telling Winslow that his wife was very ill, and that was all. Just a few words. I was told to give the note to Toshiro, who would give it to his wife when she visited.’

  Tom was anxious to end the conversation. He thanked Mr Torajiro, and decided that talking to Mr Akiyama would be pointless. The person he really wanted to speak to was Tom fucking Chafer.

  Chafer wasn’t at his desk when Tom’s call was put through, so Tom waited half an hour before trying again. During this time he was obliged to listen to a lengthy encomium about Loveday’s contribution to the war effort by a major who rattled off crop tonnages as if he were personally responsible for planting and harvesting every item.

  Chafer picked up the telephone when Tom called again. The conversation was brief. Fazackerly had been arrested. Chafer had been right about him. He’d been prepared to betray his country at the first opportunity.

  ‘Why did you insist that I come all the way to Loveday?’

  ‘You needed to see how real intelligence works.’

  ‘Winslow Fazackerly is no traitor. You set out to trap him.’

  ‘I set out to test him.’

  ‘You’re a fucking prick.’

  ‘I’m good at my job.’

  Chafer hung up.

  ON HER WAY home after nightshift, Clara called in to Helen’s office and sat with her. It was clear that Helen had barely slept.

  ‘Inspector Lambert told me what happened to Guy, Clar. Am I responsible for this? Am I?’

  ‘If you keep asking yourself that, you’ll start to believe it, and it’s absurd. You might as well ask if you’re responsible for the whole fucking war.’

  ‘But I let Guy go out there. I employed him to go out there.’

  ‘And he accepted the job. He knew what he was doing.’

  ‘Did he, though? And Joe? Joe could have died, Clar. And his best friend is dead. Why did I think I could do thi
s? I can’t do this. I’m closing the business.’

  ‘No, you’re not. It’s your investigation that’s uncovered all the Church of the First Born bullshit.’

  ‘Not in time to save Zachary Wilson, or Guy.’

  ‘But maybe in time to save God knows how many other people.’

  Helen looked blankly ahead of her.

  ‘Helen, listen to me. If you give up now, Guy’s death really will have been in vain. You can’t do that to him. You have to be brave enough to accept the risk. You have to be as brave as Guy was.’

  ‘Those are just words, Clar.’

  ‘So turn them into something more, Helen. Turn them into actions.’

  Helen stood up and walked the few steps to where Clara was sitting. Clara rose, and Helen embraced her. This sudden intimacy surprised Clara. In all their years of friendship, Helen had rarely made physical contact with her. They were close. They knew each other’s secrets and private thoughts — although not all of them — but Helen had never been comfortable with touching others.

  ‘Where do I go from here, Clar?’

  ‘I don’t know. You’re the fucking detective.’

  JOE WAS RELEASED from hospital at lunchtime, and was given strict instructions to go home. He was to take things slowly and to be mindful of any change in his vision or in the intensity of his headaches. He ignored the advice, and walked from the hospital to the office. He wondered why people were staring at him, and realised it was the bandage around his head.

  Helen knew that he wouldn’t go from the hospital to Kew, and she didn’t admonish him when he came into the office. She wanted to tell him that he looked terrible, unwell, and that he shouldn’t be here. She recognised, though, that Joe wouldn’t appreciate being given advice. If he was here, it was because he wanted to be here, needed to be here.