The Orchard Murders

by Robert Gott

  ‘The man who left this, what did he look like?’

  ‘Well, quite presentable, although he needed a shave, and he had a bruise on his face. Dark hair. Nice eyes. He seemed quite nervous, like a suitor.’

  ‘Like a what?’ Clara snapped.

  Sister Kelly blushed.

  ‘I didn’t mean anything by that, doctor. I just meant I got the impression that the parcel was a gift, a personal gift.’

  Sister Kelly was hoping that Dr Dawson would unwrap the parcel in front of her. It was obviously a book, wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. It hadn’t been carefully wrapped, but men were hopeless at that sort of thing, Sister Kelly thought. Still, it was romantic, wasn’t it, to give someone a book? It might be a book of poems. That would be doubly romantic. If it was poems, she’d know for sure that the man with the bruise was in love with Dr Dawson.

  Clara took the parcel and returned upstairs. In her small office, she placed it on the table and looked at it. She was called away before she could open it, and didn’t have a spare moment for another three hours. It was well after midnight when she picked it up and weighed its heft in her hand. She turned it over. There was no writing on the brown paper. She handled it as if it were a bomb, feeling along its edges, reluctant to discover its identity. Finally, she cut the string and tore away the paper. It was a volume of Shakespeare’s sonnets. It had every appearance of being second-hand. There was no dust jacket, and the cover was battered. On the flyleaf was the name ‘Kenneth Bussell’ and an address in Rockhampton, in Queensland. There was a handwritten note poking out from among the pages. Clara pulled it out, and then worried that she ought to have been more careful about preserving fingerprints. The note was short, and written in a well-formed hand:

  My dear Dr Dawson,

  This isn’t much, but I don’t have much. I move around and can’t afford the burden of things. I always carry this with me. I consider it my most precious possession, and so I wanted you to have it. It’s just to say thank you for your kindness at the hospital and for your graciousness in dealing with that awful other doctor. He was a terrible man. I’ve met many like him. I despise them.

  You were gentle. I was boorish; more boorish than normal. I can’t help thinking, for example, that you’ve seen my private parts, which makes the intimacy between us unequal — a situation I’d like to correct. Please read sonnet 29. It tells you all you need to know about me. I’ll be in touch, Kenneth Bussell.

  CLARA RE-READ THE note, disturbed by its disorienting mix of careful phrasing and casual obscenity. It was a confession of sorts, too. The reference to Dr Matthews was unambiguous in its hatred of him. That final ‘I’ll be in touch’ was terrifying. What was in sonnet 29? Clara found it. It was one she remembered from school:

  When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,

  I all alone beweep my outcast state,

  And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,

  And look upon myself and curse my fate …

  She hurried through to the final two lines:

  For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings

  That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

  She’d never thought of this sonnet as sinister, but its association with Kenneth Bussell made it so. It was a declaration of love, and that opening verse was as good as a confession to murder. How else could you interpret ‘disgrace’?

  HOSPITALS AT NIGHT, even with wards filled with snoring patients, are unsettling places. There are dark corners and empty corridors, and they produce sounds whose echoes come from unexpected places. Kenneth Bussell’s love token — for that was clearly what it was — created an air of disgust that played on Clara’s nerves. She kept expecting him to emerge from a shadow, or touch her shoulder, or breathe down her neck. She ought to have felt safe inside the hospital. She didn’t, and so she spent the rest of her shift moving to wherever she could see a nurse or orderly. The privacy of her office, even though she shared it with two other doctors, and which she valued as a place she could retreat to, now made her feel isolated and vulnerable. Should she ring D24? No. This was hardly an emergency.

  An unexpected consequence of Bussell’s gift was that Clara felt guilty about declining Adelaide Matthews’ invitation to afternoon tea. Perhaps the intensity of her feelings made her sympathetic to the intensity of Matthews’ feelings. It was just afternoon tea, after all, and having it with the one other person with a connection to Kenneth Bussell (a grim one) felt like it might be reassuring somehow. She’d telephone Adelaide as soon as she got home. She wasn’t looking forward to the walk home. Maybe she should telephone Helen before she left the hospital and ask her to drive in and take her home. Yes, she decided, yes. Helen wouldn’t mind.

  TOM MACKENZIE DROPPED Alexander Forbes in Fitzroy, and drove on to Helen’s house in Kew. He’d only been there on a couple of occasions, and its size and extravagance still amazed him. It was 9.30 pm when he knocked on the door. He was expected. Ros Lord opened the door and welcomed him, unexpectedly, with a kiss on the cheek.

  ‘I kiss people now,’ she said. ‘Life is too short not to kiss people I like.’

  That simple kiss shrank the grand dimensions of the entrance vestibule to comfortable domesticity. When Ros took Tom into the library, the first thing he saw was the back of Joe’s bandaged head.

  ‘The bandage has become an item of clothing for you, hasn’t it?’

  ‘You can talk,’ Joe said, getting up from his chair.

  Helen stood and greeted Tom, and said that she’d go upstairs to bed and leave them to it. Tom said, ‘No, no. please stay. I’d like to talk to you as well as Joe.’

  Ros Lord reappeared, carrying three brandy balloons on a tray.

  ‘I’m trying to teach my palate to like brandy,’ Helen said. ‘So far, I’m not succeeding.’

  ‘I, on the other hand, have met with considerable success,’ Joe said.

  Ros declined the offer to join them, claiming a prior engagement with a radio serial on 3UZ. Throughout the conversation, Tom watched Helen surreptitiously. He liked her face. Expressions moved across it easily. Was she pretty? Most people would say no, but it was a face that was better than merely pretty. It was a face animated by intelligence and curiosity, and the more he looked at it, the stronger his attraction grew. As he watched her, he began to realise that her eyes were focused on Joe. Perhaps it was a sympathetic response to his injury. Or was there something else in her gaze? Tom pressed this thought down. Joe and Helen spoke about the Church of the First Born and about the strange characters who peopled it.

  ‘Are they all capable of murder,’ Tom asked, ‘even the women?’

  ‘Well,’ said Joe, ‘remember Voltaire’s observation. Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.’

  ‘That’s the history of religion in a single sentence,’ Helen said. ‘We watched Prudence turning herself into a version of Prescott. I found it disconcerting. There’ll be people lining up to be duped by her. She calls herself the Mother. It sounds benign, doesn’t it?’

  ‘It’s a long, long way from the benign,’ Joe said.

  ‘Alexander Forbes said he got the impression that the Church of the First Born is essentially a business.’

  ‘That’s what we thought,’ Joe said, ‘and that was an under-estimation that cost Guy his life. It’s a business, of course it is, but a man like Walter Pinshott believes — genuinely, insanely believes — that Prescott is the chosen one. He’s invested his whole intelligence, his whole sense of self in the bullshit that Prescott peddles.’

  ‘No one knows better than you two where fanaticism leads,’ Helen said.

  ‘The Jews in Europe are finding out all about where fanatical belief leads,’ Joe said.

  Tom was tempted to tell them about Winslow Fazackerly. It wasn’t the restrictions imposed by the Crimes Act that stopped him doing so. It was
the sense that there was no room at this moment for a story that competed with the awful gravity of Guy Kirkham’s death.

  ‘How are you going to find Pinshott?’ Tom asked.

  ‘Someone is sheltering him,’ Helen said, ‘and that someone is likely to be a member of the Church, and somewhere there is a ledger with all their names and addresses. It’s a small congregation, so Prescott would want to keep track of the … what’s the word?’

  ‘Tithes,’ said Joe.

  ‘The police would have done a full search, but they might have missed it. It might be a single piece of paper or a thin notebook, tucked away somewhere.’

  ‘I’d like to see inside the women’s hut,’ Joe said.

  ‘You’re not going near that place again, Joe, at least not on your own.’

  ‘What about me?’ Tom said. ‘No one knows who I am out there. I could …’

  ‘No!’ Helen said with a fierceness that was sudden and that neither Tom nor Joe was expecting. ‘No one is going out there alone, or under cover. We don’t know how dangerous these women are, and we know nothing about that young man.’

  ‘He hasn’t been arrested,’ Tom said. ‘Titus doesn’t think he was involved in any of the violence.’

  Helen took a sip of her brandy and made a face.

  ‘It’s cough medicine.’

  Tom left the Lord house at midnight. He was glad he’d come. He felt reconnected with Joe, and he was now certain that his feelings for Helen were real. This didn’t feel like a schoolboy crush. Her focused attention on Joe was a concern, although he was convinced it wasn’t reciprocated. Joe seemed unaware of it.

  He thought all this over on the drive back to the Lamberts’ house, where he was to spend the night. Suddenly, it occurred to him that there might be something he could do to help find Walter Pinshott. He understood Helen’s admonition that no one should go out to Prescott’s orchard, but it sprang from her fear for Joe’s safety and probably some guilt about Guy Kirkham’s death. Such feelings of guilt would be misplaced, but Helen was the type of person who would shoulder the blame, not shift it onto someone else. He, Tom, wasn’t an employee of Helen Lord and Associates, so he was under no obligation to follow her directions. The thought of actually doing something energised him. He was feeling miserable about the whole Winslow Fazackerly affair. He hated his job, and he loathed Tom Chafer. The possibility of finding that list of names offered a sense of redemption. In a way, he convinced himself, this wasn’t just to impress Helen Lord; it was also an opportunity to prove something to himself.

  AS DAYLIGHT BEGAN to drive out the shadows in the hospital corridors and corners, Clara felt less trepidation about walking home. She’d intended to telephone Helen, but decided it wouldn’t be necessary to bother her. She checked the street before she set off. There was no sign of Bussell. She walked quickly to Russell Street Police Headquarters, and left the copy of Shakespeare’s sonnets at the desk, with a note for Inspector Lambert. It was just after 7.00 am, and although he was expected, he hadn’t yet arrived. Does he ever take a day off? Clara wondered. When she left the police building, she again checked the street for Bussell. There were a handful of people on the pavements, each walking purposefully. As Clara began to walk towards East Melbourne, a car slowed down as it passed her, which made her heart race. It stopped just ahead of her. She, too, stopped. The passenger door opened and a woman got out, waved goodbye to the driver, and closed the door. The relief made Clara smile at her jumpiness.

  When she reached home, she was glad to discover that the front door was locked, even though it was Saturday morning. Pat, God bless her, had got the message about keeping it locked. When she entered the house, the smell of bacon frying calmed her nerves. She dropped her bag in her room and went into the kitchen. Susan was there. Pat, apparently, was still asleep. This was the normal, comforting routine. On the weekend, Susan never slept in, and Pat almost always did. There was, however, something rather tense in Susan’s face.

  ‘There’s a letter for you,’ she said. ‘It was pushed under the front door. There was no name on the envelope, so I’m sorry, but I read it.’

  ‘That’s all right. I would have done the same. It’s from him, isn’t it?’

  Susan nodded.

  ‘We’re not leaving here, Clara; just so you know. We’re not going to let this man scare us out of our house.’

  ‘Thanks, Susan. I do feel as though I’ve brought this bastard into all our lives.’

  Clara picked the envelope up from where Susan had placed it on the table. Inside it was a folded piece of paper. It was good-quality paper, as if it had been taken from an expensive stationery box. Printed in purple ink were the words, ‘Ungrateful bitches are as useless as arrogant bastards.’ Clara’s first thought was that Bussell must have expected her to go looking for him outside the hospital as soon as she received the book. This ugly little note was how he dealt with that disappointment. The volatility of his emotions was frightening.

  ‘I feel like I’m under siege. Why is the world so full of arseholes?’

  ‘Because half the world is made up of men,’ Susan said.

  Clara managed to laugh, and it felt so good she hugged Susan in appreciation.

  ‘I’m going up to Carlton in a few hours. I’ll drop this in to the police on the way. I’m going to try to get a couple of hours’ sleep. Are you and Pat going to be around?’

  ‘I don’t know about Pat, but I’ll be here, and I’ll keep an eye out for any men loitering out the front.’

  Clara telephoned Adelaide Matthews. She sounded groggy, as if the call had woken her; given how early it was, Clara supposed that this was the case. It took a moment for Adelaide to understand that it was Clara Dawson whom she was speaking to. When Clara said she could come for afternoon tea after all, the tone of Adelaide’s simple ‘Oh’ was indicative of having been taken aback.

  ‘I’m sorry, have you made other plans?’

  ‘No. It’s just …’

  ‘Well, another time perhaps.’

  ‘No, no. This afternoon would be lovely. I’m half-asleep.’ She laughed. ‘You must think I’m a slug-abed.’

  ‘Not at all, Adelaide. Saturday mornings should be for sleeping in. Only barbarians and shift workers should be awake at this hour.’

  It was a mollifying thing to say, considering that it wasn’t really very early at all. They agreed that Clara would arrive at 2.30 and that there was no need for her to bring anything.

  The presence of Susan and Pat in the house meant that Clara felt sufficiently secure to lie on her bed, close her eyes, and attempt to relax.

  When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,

  I all alone beweep my outcast state …

  These verses insinuated themselves into her dozing brain, and she couldn’t shake them.

  TOM MACKENZIE DIDN’T own a car. His brother-in-law had been generous enough to lend him his car to drive from Brunswick to Kew and back. Even this distance made a significant dent in the amount of fuel in the tank, and Tom knew that Titus wouldn’t be keen on his petrol ration being exhausted by a further drive out to distant Nunawading. In any case, Titus wouldn’t sanction Tom’s idea of snooping around Prescott’s property in search of a registry of members of the Church of the First Born.

  Having stayed the night in Brunswick, Tom shared breakfast and the newspapers with Titus and Maude. Amongst the news of an Allied victory at Cassino was the more mundane excitement that the first consignment of new season’s navel oranges had arrived in Melbourne. Tom mentioned this as he turned the pages. Maude was interested.

  ‘The thing I like about oranges,’ she said, ‘is that you don’t have to cook them.’

  Tom’s eye fell on an advertisement on page four:

  Hire cars are obtainable, for business purposes only. ‘Drive Yourself’ cars from Latrobe Motors Pty. Ltd. 182 Exhibition Street.

>   There was no telephone number, but the exchange would find that for him. This would be expensive, and he’d have to manufacture some sort of ersatz business, but money would encourage the proprietors to suspend due diligence. Maude asked him if Winslow Fazackerly’s imprisonment was preying on his mind as actively as it was on hers.

  ‘It bothers me, but it’s not preying on my mind.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about it all night. I know I only met him once, but I loved the way he spoke about his wife, and the clear-headed way he talked about Japan. Whatever he did was driven by his love for his wife, not hatred for his country. He’s not a traitor, Tom. Please don’t abandon him. This is a terrible injustice.’

  ‘Is it? I was just getting used to the idea that I’d been taken in. I prefer that to worrying about an innocent man. I have no way of finding out anything. I can’t even find out where he’s being held.’

  ‘Can’t you break into Chafer’s office and rifle through his drawers?’

  ‘Not unless I want to share a cell with Winslow. There are a couple of decent blokes in Intelligence, though. Maybe I can make discreet inquiries.’

  On the tram down Sydney Road, Tom thought about approaching either Benjamin Newman or Vincent Deighton. They’d been polite to him and they shared his opinion of Tom Chafer. But he had no real relationship with either man, and what would be in it for them to risk censure by giving him information? He wished Maude hadn’t been so adamant about Winslow’s innocence. He trusted her judgement, so now he couldn’t comfortably consign Winslow to the pariah status of traitor.

  When he reached home, he telephoned and was put through to Latrobe Motors. They’d be open until 5.00 pm, and Tom would need to bring proof of his legitimate business. He needed a car, he said, to run out to see a client in the eastern suburbs, and his own car was off the road.

  ‘I had two blowouts,’ he said, ‘and I just can’t get replacement tyres.’

  The man on the other end of the line assured Tom that their cars were reliable, although they weren’t new cars, and the tyres were reconditioned. Fuel would have to come out of Tom’s allocation, which was fine as he hadn’t had reason to use it, and he was able to purchase fuel to cover at least 80 miles. There were two small hitches. The first was that he wasn’t in any sort of business; the second was that he didn’t know where Prescott’s orchard was. Money would overcome the first, and he hoped that his friendship with Joe Sable would solve the second.