by Robert Gott
‘Adelaide? It’s me, Clara.’
She turned the door knob and leaned against the wood. The door opened without a sound. Adelaide Matthews stood facing her two children, who were also standing. The little girl, Violet, was crying softly; the boy, Cornel wasn’t crying. His cheek bore a red mark that could only have been raised by the flat of Adelaide’s hand. Each of the children was tearing pieces of paper in half, and in half again.
‘Oh, you decided to come,’ Adelaide said. ‘How very nice. We’re having a lovely time, aren’t we, children?’
Neither Violet nor Cornel responded.
‘Aren’t we, children?’
Each child looked at the floor. Adelaide’s arm swung back, and she delivered a vicious slap to the side of Cornel’s face. He dropped the paper he was holding, and cradled his cheek.
‘Adelaide!’ Clara was so shocked that she remained rooted to the spot. Adelaide immediately took Cornel in her arms and cooed how sorry she was. She kissed his cheek and stroked his face. He stood, rigid in her arms, and so she pushed him away.
Adelaide smiled at Clara.
‘We’re making confetti,’ she said. ‘I’ve taken every Norman Lindsay drawing out of its frame, and I’ve collected all Gerald’s Lindsay prints, and we’re tearing them up into confetti. We’re having a lovely time.’
Those final words chilled Clara. Adelaide’s eyes were dull, either because of alcohol or medication, or a mixture of both. Clara had treated patients who looked as Adelaide now looked, and they’d been beyond the reach of reason.
‘Let’s go downstairs and have a cup of tea,’ Clara said. Adelaide laughed.
‘But we haven’t finished making confetti out of daddy’s pornography, have we, children?’
This time, Violet managed a shake of her head.
‘And I’ve been telling the children all about their daddy and what sort of a man he was. It’s a sad story, but it has a happy ending, because now he’s dead.’
Cornel began to cry.
‘See, Clara, see. He doesn’t believe me when I tell him his father hated him. Not as much as he hated Violet, of course. She’s a girl. Half a brain. Just a womb on legs. Just an incubator for the next glorious man.’
These words appalled Clara. Perhaps the children didn’t fully comprehend them.
‘Adelaide, the police have arrested the man who murdered Gerald.’
This seemed to strike Adelaide with the force of a blow.
‘What?’
‘The man who killed your husband, the police have arrested him.’
Adelaide moved towards Clara, and ushered her out of the room and onto the landing.
‘What do you mean?’
‘They’ve caught him.’
‘There is no him!’ Adelaide seemed to be swelling into a rage.
‘I don’t understand, Adelaide.’ In fact, she was beginning to understand.
‘How could you believe that this man, whoever he is, killed Gerald?’ Her anger was increasing. ‘Are you stupid? Did I waste my time? I brought you Gerald’s wallet. It was a gift, a token to let you know that you’d never have to suffer my vile husband ever again.’
‘You?’
‘You must have known. Why else would you begin a friendship with me?’
‘You killed Gerald for me?’ Clara couldn’t manage more than a whisper. Adelaide put her hands on her hips.
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Clara. I hadn’t met you. I killed that bastard for me and for my children. The fact that I’d never have to listen to another tirade about women doctors, specifically you, was a bonus. If he’d made your life as miserable as he’d made mine, I thought you’d like to know he was — how shall I put it? — permanently knobbled.’
‘How did you know where I lived?’
‘I found that out months ago. I just asked, and, because I was Gerald’s wife, they told me. I thought I might visit you, warn you that Gerald was undermining you. I just never got around to it, until that night. It was rather thrilling, hiding in the shadows in your house, waiting for the other two women to go to their rooms.’
Clara was backing away, towards the stairs.
‘How did you …?’
‘Oh, Clara. My husband was a vain and selfish man, and so easy to fool. We used to walk in that park when we were courting, and sometimes, late at night, he’d force himself on me there. He found the risk of discovery exciting. I suggested we meet there that night, after his shift, and go for a romantic stroll.’ Adelaide snorted. ‘Gerald didn’t really do romance, but he was excited by the prospect of sex by moonlight in a public place. That was his sad notion of something illicit. He was unbelievably easy to kill. Do you know what his last words to me were?’
Clara shook her head.
‘He called me a name I can’t bring myself to say, and then he died. I’d like to think that was his ticket to hell.’
‘I’m going downstairs, Adelaide.’
‘You’re not going to call the police, Clara. No, no, no. This is just between you and me. They can hang the man they’ve arrested. I wanted you to know the truth. I wanted you to know that it was me who ended your misery and mine. No one else has to know. The children need their mother, after all.’
Adelaide seemed calm, but as Clara put her foot on the first tread of the stairs, Adelaide rushed at her. Her hands closed around Clara’s throat, and her momentum threatened to topple Clara backwards. Somehow — afterwards she could never explain it, perhaps it was the fact that Adelaide was drunk or drugged — as their bodies twisted, it was Adelaide who lost her footing, and, propelled by the action of Clara grabbing her wrists and thrusting them away from her, fell heavily down the stairs. The dull thud as her body tumbled was a sound that Clara would never forget.
The house was perfectly still and quiet, apart from a strange panting sound, which Clara realised was her own breathing. Adelaide Matthews lay still at the bottom of the stairs, one shoulder dislocated into a sickening position.
The door to the room that the children were in opened, and Cornel stepped onto the landing.
‘Go back inside,’ Clara said, and to her surprise he did as he was told. She wasn’t sure if he’d seen his mother. She descended the stairs and felt Adelaide’s pulse, half-expecting that there wouldn’t be one, but it was there, and it was strong. Adelaide was unconscious. Clara hurried into the street and called Helen into the house. Without asking what had happened, Helen went straight to the telephone and rang the police and an ambulance. As Clara continued to check Adelaide’s vital signs, she told Helen everything.
‘Good God, those poor children,’ Helen said. ‘Shouldn’t we move her off the stairs, Clar?’
‘No. She may have damaged her neck. We’ll need to stabilise her first.’
‘I’ll check the children.’
‘Helen, I almost killed Kenneth Bussell with an injection of morphine.’
‘He’s alive, Clar, and he’s about to get good news.’
Clara closed her eyes and concentrated on the pulse in Adelaide Matthews’ neck.
18
three weeks later
‘THE FIRST THING I’m going to make when this war is over is a proper Irish stew.’
Both Maude and Titus assured Tom Mackenzie that the stew he’d served them was fine.
‘Suddenly there are potatoes in the shop, but no onions, not a single bloody onion. Unbelievable,’ he said.
The three of them were in Tom’s house in South Melbourne. The newspapers that day had been full of the continuing inquiry into the identification of the Pyjama Girl. Although the mystery surrounding this murdered woman had gruesomely entertained Australia since the body’s discovery way back in 1934, these proceedings had assumed an interminable quality. As always on this subject, Titus remained resolutely discreet. He shared his knowledge with Maude — Tom had no doubt about
that — but it was off-limits as dinner-table conversation.
Titus had got over his annoyance with his brother-in-law’s little adventure at Prescott’s orchard, partly because it had yielded, through Helen Lord’s intervention, the useful knowledge that Prescott did not in fact own the property. His marriage to Prudence was legitimate, and whether or not Justice also shared his bed, there was no evidence that he’d entered into a bigamous marriage with her. A marriage sanctioned by the Church of the First Born was no marriage before the law, so that at least was one charge that hadn’t been included in the list of charges laid against him. The most serious of these were attempted murder and being an accessory after the fact. If Walter Pinshott ever turned up, the charges, depending on Pinshott’s evidence, might be upgraded. Pinshott, however, had avoided capture.
Prudence, in her new role as the Holy Mother, had been unexpectedly cooperative. She’d given the police the names and addresses of several members of the church, and these people had in turn provided further names and addresses. All in all, more than 100 people had accepted Anthony Prescott as the Messiah. None of them was harbouring Walter Pinshott, and several of them had expressed the view that they didn’t like him. According to the report that Titus read, one woman said that when Pinshott looked at her, he did so with lewdness in his gaze. A male member of the congregation claimed that Prescott had the power to make this man’s son sicken and die, and that £50 would prevent this from happening. He’d paid the £50, but regretted doing so. Nevertheless, he continued to attend services. Why, Titus had asked Maude, why were people so immoveably stupid? Maude’s theory was that people, some people at least, preferred to let others do their thinking for them. They wanted a Master.
Tom had heard from Joe about Clara and about Adelaide Matthews, and Titus didn’t think that it was breaching anyone’s confidence to say that Clara had been badly shaken by her misjudgement of Kenneth Bussell.
‘He’s not going to press charges about the morphine injection, although it undoubtedly constitutes assault. He’s a strange man. A small part of him is charming. The larger part is unappealing.’
‘And Adelaide Matthews is alive and well?’
‘She’s alive, Tom. She’s far from well. I suspect her counsel will go for an insanity defence.’
‘God knows what her husband subjected her to,’ Maude said. ‘You don’t start a marriage hating your husband. You get there by degrees.’
Titus raised his eyebrows.
‘That isn’t a universal truth, darling,’ she said. ‘Just a depressingly common one.’
Tom cleared away the dishes, and, as she almost always did, Maude asked for the recipe. She had yet to actually make one of Tom’s dishes in her own home. She followed Tom into the kitchen to help with the washing-up.
‘It’s been a few weeks since Winslow was arrested,’ she said. ‘Have you heard anything?’
‘Not a thing. I’ve asked Chafer, and I’ve asked a couple of other people, but the answer is always the same. He’s out of harm’s way, the army will court-martial him when they see fit, and no one, other than official people, is allowed to visit him, or even know where he is.’
‘That amounts to torture.’
‘Chafer told me he was well watered and well fed.’
‘That makes him sound like a farm animal.’
‘Chafer wouldn’t rate him so highly.’
‘And what about you, Tom? How do you rate him?’
Tom stopped what he was doing and faced his sister.
‘You know what, Maudey, and this will sound awful, but the initial shock of Winslow’s arrest wore off pretty quickly. I liked him, but I didn’t know him, except briefly and superficially, and the evidence that Chafer got on him was pretty damning. I say that without budging an inch from my position of loathing Chafer. Given Winslow’s situation, I can sort of understand that his loyalties might be divided, but maybe loyalty to a Japanese wife when we’re at war with her country is a dangerous luxury. That’s certainly Chafer’s position.’
‘E.M. Forster said that if he had to choose between betraying his friend and betraying his country, he hoped he’d have the guts to betray his country.’
Titus came into the kitchen with a plate that had been left on the table.
‘Titus,’ Tom said, ‘answer this without thinking about it. If you had to choose between betraying Maude and betraying Australia, what would you do?’
‘I’d betray Australia, and I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have a single pang of conscience.’
Tom looked at his brother-in-law, and wasn’t immediately sure whether he was shocked or impressed by what he’d said.
CLARA SAT WITH Helen in Helen’s office. She’d escaped disciplinary action for her use of morphine on Kenneth Bussell. The nurse who’d taken £5 from Bussell and allowed him into the hospital had not been so fortunate. She hadn’t been dismissed, but she’d been suspended from duty, and the note on her record would ensure that she’d never make matron. Naturally, she blamed Clara for this, because taking responsibility for her own actions had never been in Sister Kelly’s repertoire of virtues. Clara wasn’t looking forward to Kelly’s return to work — although, as she said to Helen, Sister Kelly had always been a bitch.
Helen and Clara agreed that it was amazing how quickly things had returned to what passed for normal, given the state of the world. There’d been no word from or about the Church of the First Born. Anthony Prescott was locked up, awaiting trial, as was Adelaide Matthews. Her children had been given over to the care of Adelaide’s parents. Helen had driven out to visit Meredith Wilson, and had found her among her pear trees, grieving for her husband, certainly, but not blaming anyone for his suicide. Helen had a long conversation with her, and felt at the end of it that Meredith Wilson would be all right.
Joe wasn’t in the office when Clara arrived. Helen Lord and Associates had begun to pick up paying work. A toolmaker had asked them to investigate the cumulative losses of small pieces of equipment. Someone on the floor was pocketing stuff — equipment that the thief obviously thought no one would notice, and which he could sell on the black market. The missing nuts, bolts, screws, and drill bits were costing a significant amount to replace.
There was also a restaurant owner who suspected his chef of diverting supplies from the kitchen into the black market.
‘It’s small beer,’ Helen said, ‘but it’s proper, paying work.’
They spoke about Joe — they often spoke about Joe, especially since Clara had begun to warm to him. Helen hadn’t made any declarations. She felt much more at ease around him, much less afraid that she might blurt out her feelings. They laughed together now, and she believed there was a developing intimacy that would make a declaration unnecessary.
‘I feel like there’s an inevitability about it now,’ she said, ‘and that I should just let it happen in its own time.’
Clara was sceptical, but after her disastrous misreadings of Kenneth Bussell and Adelaide Matthews, she felt disinclined to offer Helen advice.
‘So long as you’re happy, Helen.’
‘I am, Clar. Truly, I am. I don’t feel the need to hurry anything. With the business finding its feet, I’m glad not to complicate things.’
‘Do you keep in touch with Inspector Lambert?’
‘He’s keeping me up to date as much as he can without breaking police rules. They’re preparing the case against Anthony Prescott, and against Walter Pinshott, although he seems to have fallen off the face of the earth. Prudence has assured the police that Pinshott hasn’t made any contact with her, and Titus believes her.’
‘What about the young man who lived out there?’
‘Oh yes. I asked about him. He hasn’t gone back. They’re keeping an eye on him, but he seems to have lost interest in the Church of the First Born. He volunteered for the army, but they knocked him back. He has a history of psychological
problems. Manpower has placed him in some menial job. I don’t know what. Titus didn’t say. He did say that, as far as they know, Pinshott hasn’t made any attempt to contact him. Prudence thinks he’s gone north.’
‘Are you and Joe still looking for him?’
‘No. Joe was reluctant to let it go, but, realistically, we’ve done all we can. At least there’s no mystery about who killed Guy. That would have been unbearable for Joe. Sometimes people who commit terrible crimes get away with it. Wouldn’t it be nice if everything got tied up with a neat bow?’
‘The world is full of knots. Bows are harder to come by.’
Helen laughed.
‘Clara, you’re a philospher. Come around tonight for dinner.’
Clara agreed, and as she walked back to her room in Powlett Street, she realised that for the first time in a very long time she felt happy. She smiled and almost hoped that Pat hadn’t locked the front door. Somehow that would represent a return to normalcy.
TOM MACKENZIE’S POLICY was to avoid Tom Chafer if at all possible. With Winslow Fazackerly waiting to be court-martialled, Tom’s secondment to Intelligence had come to an end. His day-to-day duties were once again overseeing the management and distribution of essential materials for the armed forces. He wasn’t alone in this, of course. The supplies that the army, navy, and airforce required demanded an enormous number of support personnel. Nevertheless, sitting alone in his office, trawling through requests, demands, and invoices, he often wondered if there was in fact anyone else doing similar work. Why did a request for 800 pairs of shoelaces come across his desk and not that of his counterpart in Sydney, which was where the shoelaces were needed? Fortunately, he knew where to source the laces, so this was an uncomplicated order. He’d just placed it when Tom Chafer walked into his office. He didn’t knock. Any form of courtesy was seen by him as being somehow demeaning. Tom therefore felt no obligation to be polite.
‘What do you want? I’m busy.’
Chafer was unaffected by Tom’s dismissive tone.
‘Your mate Fazackerly will spend the rest of the war in prison.’
