by Meg Keneally
He rapped gently on Eveleigh’s open door to make the man aware he was in, then took himself to his own desk and started transcribing a copy of Grace’s statement. He left out Peggy and Bronagh – hiding in the store, they couldn’t have seen anything, and he had no leisure to interview them now. Nor did he want to see them join Grace in her confinement, to see their sentences lengthened and their hair cropped.
The further he got into his transcription, the slower he went, his own reluctance to see the matter concluded dragging on his fingers. He was distracted by an impulse to bring Eveleigh into his confidence. But with a person as highly placed as Rebecca Nelson, and Eveleigh’s current frustration, he did not think it was the time.
So when he presented a document to Eveleigh, it was a list of land grants made in the last days of Governor Brisbane’s administration, for perusal by his replacement. Eveleigh glanced at it, set it aside.
‘And the statement of prisoner O’Leary?’
‘It will be with you by this afternoon, sir.’
‘Good. After that perhaps you may like to pass some time in the cellar, setting those documents to rights.’
‘I’d like that very much indeed, sir. As we know, the worst of the heat never penetrates there, and I must confess I am soothed by the process of imposing order on the mess in which those files currently live.’
‘Very well, you may soothe yourself then.’
‘However, sir …’
Eveleigh, having returned his gaze to the list of land grants, looked up again, putting his pen down very deliberately.
‘Yes, Monsarrat. There would be a “however”.’
‘My housekeeper was ill this morning, and I would as soon look in on her. I promise to confine myself to the cellar until long after nightfall to make up for it. Would you have any objection?’
‘I suppose not. Those files in the cellar are not going to slide any further into disarray for the want of your company. But I do warn you, Mr Monsarrat, if word reaches me that you are continuing to look into the Church murder, you will be confined to this office in perpetuity. And I am glad to hear that you like it in the cellar, I’m beginning to toy with the idea of locking you in there.’
Surely, thought Monsarrat, there was no harm in strolling past the Female Factory. It was on his way from Government House. If there was no guard at the gate, he might be able to duck in to check that Mrs Nelson was there and Hannah Mulrooney wasn’t.
The guard was there, however. He was deep in conversation with Stephen Lethbridge, while wiping some of the contents of one of Lethbridge’s pies off his face with the back of his hand. Lethbridge could afford the time to exchange pleasantries – there were no knots of men outside the Factory today looking for wives or servants.
Monsarrat decided that as he was here, there could be no harm in skirting the Factory to have a look at the other side of the yard gate. He had not examined the gate closely before. He had not had the leisure, nor could he afford the turnkeys or overseers wondering what a man wearing a silk cravat rather than a rough neckerchief was doing staring at the gate in the Third Class yard. On this side of the river, though, he was observed by a few white cockatoos, their sulfur combs stowed for now, and by those bats that happened to be awake among the hundreds which hung from the eucalypt branches above him.
Coming from the other side, he wondered for a moment if it was the same gate. The timbers he had seen in the Third Class yard were as smooth as could be expected for such a utilitarian structure. But clearly those who had built the Factory had felt the side of the gate mostly seen only by the tradesmen who occasionally passed through it did not deserve the same treatment. The wood was rough and splintered, as were the timbers of the frame that wedged the gate into the Factory wall.
‘I’ve never seen such thoughtful contemplation of a gate, Mr Monsarrat.’
Lethbridge had clearly tired of his conversation with the guard – who, after all, was unlikely to be able to exchange views on Tacitus versus Seneca, or the merits of Herodotus. He still had his hot box around his neck, was still moving from foot to foot, making deep indentations in the river mud. If only I had thought to come here just after the murder, thought Monsarrat, I might have seen a footprint. Perhaps a small, feminine one.
‘Mr Lethbridge. Had I the leisure, I would certainly relieve you of one of your pies.’
‘Yet you’re staring at the gate as though you have all the time in the world, Mr Monsarrat. One can’t help but wonder why.’
‘We have an agreement, you and I, about keeping our own secrets, do we not?’
‘Quite right. Forgive my curiosity – if you are not offended by my asking, I shall not be offended by the lack of an answer.’
Monsarrat smiled, inclined his head to show he was perfectly happy with the agreement.
Lethbridge removed his hot box from around his neck and set it on a nearby rock.
‘Keep half an eye on that for me, would you, Mr Monsarrat? The magpies love my wares nearly as much as the men.’
He picked up a stick and began to make indentations at small intervals. He seemed to be thoroughly enjoying himself, poking with his stick at the mud that was exposed when the hungry ocean drew the river waters to it. Monsarrat couldn’t see the attraction himself. In the heat, the mud smelled nearly as bad as the bats.
‘People walk by here and never notice it, you know. No one observes, now, Mr Monsarrat. Not as the philosophers did in Greece and Rome. But you can see the little kink here. The dogleg, where the river jinks to the side a bit before taking the path of least resistance and continue on towards Sydney.’
‘Yes, I suppose … Rather subtle, though, isn’t it?’
‘Not to anything in the river. You can see, here …’ – he waved the stick towards a crescent-shaped amalgamation of leaves and twigs on the riverbank – ‘Things in the river tend to get snagged here. And then the river abandons them.’
His stick continued jabbing into the mud, withdrawing, plunging again. ‘And sometimes it’s not leaves and twigs, Mr Monsarrat. I know. I observe, and I keep my counsel. Sometimes things fall in the river – coins decide to leave pockets and go for a swim, to be found by one with the wit to look. Sometimes people throw things in the river. Thinking that the waters will do their part, carry the offending object out through the heads and to sea, where it won’t be seen again until the waters boil and the Lord parts the skies to deliver the final judgement. And it wouldn’t surprise me if some of them were hoping to avoid judgement in this life.’
Soon his prodding, which seemed to be happening almost by will of the stick rather than the man who held it, slowed. He withdrew the stick from the latest of the dozens of holes it had made and frowned at it as though it had said something puzzling to him. Placed it carefully back in the same hole, and twisted it a few times. Withdrew it again, and inserted it at an angle, using it to remove as much mud as he could without getting his shirt dirty. Then he seemed to give up on the idea of a clean shirt. He knelt, pushed on the exposed end of the stick so that it opened a rift in the mud, and carefully inserted his hand, palpating whatever the stick had found for him.
When his hand drew back from the rift, it was holding an awl.
‘Is this what you were looking for, Mr Monsarrat?’
Monsarrat was hesitant to touch the thing. It was possible that this implement had been forced into the eye of another human, as little as Church was worthy of the term.
‘I’m not sure, to be honest,’ he said. ‘But do you mind if I take it?’
‘Certainly not. I’ve no use for such a thing.’
Monsarrat turned the awl over in his hand as Lethbridge resumed poking at the mud, presumably looking for coins. He found none, retrieved his hot box and said a courteous goodbye to Monsarrat, who looked up and smiled distractedly before returning his attention to the metal spike.
There was no way of being certain this was the implement that had killed Robert Church. Any blood or other material would have been tak
en care of by the river. Or the thing might have only ever been used for the purpose for which it was made.
It was sturdy enough. And it was long enough too, at least six inches. A few rust spots on the shaft. If it was the agent of Church’s death, it would have been here for a fortnight, so they were to be expected. A useful implement, still – not one ready to be cast away into the river. And who would have been in a position to throw such a thing away from the confines of the Factory? Certainly if they had pitched it into the river from the other side of the wall, they would need a reasonable throwing arm.
He turned, stalked back to the gate, stared at it for a little longer. He reached out a hand, ran it gently around the gate’s frame, and found himself having to extract a splinter from his palm.
All was quiet on the other side of the wall, apart from the white noise of the cicadas. He braced both hands against the gate, and pushed. He tried not to use too much force. He didn’t know if the gate was locked or jammed, and did not want to announce his presence by pushing it so hard it slammed flat against the wall.
The gate, as it happened, was closed, and firmly. But it wasn’t locked. Bloated by years of exposure to the humidity of the riverbank, it barely shifted against its frame with the first push. The second had a little more success. The third did the job, without the explosive entry into the courtyard Monsarrat was dreading.
The yard, as he had thought, was empty. He didn’t step into it though. Instead, keeping the gate open only a fraction, he examined the inside of the frame. This was rougher than the face of the gate. Rough enough to snag something.
He carefully ran his hand around the frame, watching its path until his eye came to a fine line of colour near one of the hinges. He cursed, for the first time, the fact that he kept his nails so closely trimmed. But after some effort, and a few more splinters, he was able to extract a single strand of red.
Monsarrat was disturbed by what he had found at the Factory, and equally by what he had not found – any sign of Rebecca Nelson. Her trap and driver were not waiting outside, and the guard, when Monsarrat asked him after his visit to the gate, claimed to have seen no sign of her.
It would add only another five minutes, ten at most, to go home quickly to alleviate the anxiety which had crouched in the corner of his mind since he’d left this morning.
He was happy to see the house closed up. The curtains drawn, no noise, no sign of activity from within. No smoke from the chimney – hardly surprising: if Mrs Mulrooney had shut herself away during a Parramatta summer with closed windows and drawn curtains, the last thing she would want was a fire.
There was, however, a slip of paper protruding from underneath the front door.
Dear Mr Monsarrat,
I do apologise that your tea service is not with you yet. Mrs Nelson very kindly agreed to convey it when she collected your housekeeper this morning. However, Grogan has returned with it still in the trap. I assure you it remains in pristine condition, and I look forward to delivering it to you at your earliest convenience. If you happen to be passing the warehouse, please do let me know when you anticipate your housekeeper will be home to receive it.
Yours sincerely,
James Henson
Monsarrat skimmed the note almost blithely, was even attempting to settle on an appropriate time to visit Henson at the shop, when the crux of the message struck him.
Rebecca Nelson had collected Mrs Mulrooney. This morning, when the doors were shut and the windows closed and the curtains drawn against that very eventuality.
So, assuming he and his housekeeper were right in believing that Rebecca Nelson was responsible for inserting a sharp object into the brain of the superintendent, Hannah Mulrooney was very possibly now in considerable danger.
Chapter 30
If only Hannah had been able to live with the sight of grey water. But she’d never liked it – water that had served its purpose, that had cleansed bodies or dishes or clothes, sitting there glowering at her, angry, she fancied, at being made to swallow the filth the household generated. And she thought, really, that she had waited more than long enough.
The hammering had started shortly after nine. She would have assumed it was Grogan, but she’d heard only one set of footsteps approach the door and those belonged to someone light.
‘Hannah! Hannah, dear, are you well? I was worried not to see you today. Hannah, come out. Won’t you answer the door, so I can satisfy myself as to your continued health?’
Rebecca sounded as sweet, as flawless, and as impeccably enunciated as always. But Hannah, of course, had no intention of answering the door.
Eventually the pounding stopped. She heard the footsteps recede, the sounds of hoof beats as the carriage pulled away. Still, she sat there in the parlour for some time. Not moving, barely breathing. Trying to ignore the dampness under her arms as the heat of the sun worked its way in through the bricks, amplifying itself in the process, and was given no chance to escape with the windows closed.
She guessed she waited an hour, possibly even more. While she could now read words, Mr Monsarrat had yet to get around to teaching her how to read clocks, so she couldn’t be certain what the one on the mantle was trying to tell her.
But surely Rebecca must be long gone by now. In the meantime the grey water in the kitchen would still be sitting there, perhaps even stewing – who knew what would happen if you let such substances lie around long enough, particularly in extreme heat.
She moved to the front windows of the parlour, as close as she could to the curtains without disturbing them. She would not risk looking out, but she stood there. Heard nothing, not even the occasional rustling of a leaf.
So to the water, then. A relief the woman had gone. She could return to the kitchen and perhaps make a start on some bread. But as she opened the back door, she heard a sound which frightened her more than any had since the sounds of the distant Wexford battles.
‘Hannah! I was so worried about you, and here you are, walking around and clearly healthier than one would ever expect. Why did you not answer me when I knocked?’
Hannah’s only option, she thought, was to pretend delight at the sight of the lady.
‘Do forgive me, Mrs Nelson. You must think me terribly rude,’ she said, resisting the urge to approach the low fence between her and Rebecca. ‘I should not come too close, though. I have been coughing for most of the night, have only just managed to take myself out into the sun. I would never forgive myself if I passed the malady on to you, with all of those women relying on you.’
‘Not at all!’ said Rebecca with exaggerated magnanimity. ‘You clearly need someone to take care of you. I sent Grogan off to water the horse, but that’s him back now. You will come to my house – no, I insist. I am very well stocked with medicines and I feel sure you will do better there.’
‘A kind offer, but I couldn’t possibly accept.’
‘Nonsense. In any case it will give me an opportunity to return your shoes. You left them, don’t you know, at the Factory last night. When you went in to get my sewing basket, although why that required you to take off your shoes is a story I would like to hear. I have them with me in the trap. Do come along, and you’ll be as well shod as ever. We must get you better. We’ve been away from our post for too long – people will start to wonder about us.’
They could wonder all they liked. Hannah realised, with the first stabs of alarm, that no one except Rebecca and her coachman knew where she was. She tried to fathom, as she had every time the wheel hit a rut, and several times in between, why she was taking such a risk. But Rebecca was not, now, sounding like Rebecca. A new – or old – presence now inhabited her body, and with it had come a new frankness. Hannah desperately wanted to hear what this woman had to say, and would rely on her own wit to survive the experience.
Where it would normally continue on around the bend in the river towards the Female Factory, the trap turned and crossed the bridge, heading towards the part of town where the prosper
ous lived. Heading towards the Nelson house.
Rebecca turned and smiled occasionally, patted Hannah’s knee solicitously, said she hoped Hannah’s shoes hadn’t been got at by rats in the night. It was amazing what happened when you left things unattended.
There was no gardener in the grounds, nor anyone else in evidence today. No doubt the domestic staff had found themselves with an unexpected day off.
‘Grogan, kindly assist Mrs Mulrooney down from the trap, she’s not well, you know,’ Rebecca said, hopping down herself in a most unladylike way, and displaying more agility than Hannah had seen in her before.
Grogan seemed to believe this gave him licence to act like a royal coachman, fetching a box and putting it on the ground near Hannah’s side, extending his hand with a flourish and helping her down.
‘That will be all, thank you, Grogan. We are going to have a little time together now, just us. And of course my guest needs to recover – although the fresh air seems to be doing wonders for you, Hannah. I haven’t heard you cough during our little journey.’
She took Hannah by the elbow with a painfully firm grip, while patting Hannah’s forearm solicitously.
So Grogan drove the trap around to the rear of the house, where Hannah assumed the stables lay. It seemed the horses might be getting something of an unexpected respite as well.
Rebecca stood on the verandah for a moment, then suddenly laughed. ‘Do you know, I was waiting here for the housekeeper to come and open the door for us. But she’s not here today, of course. So it seems I shall have to do it myself.’ She pulled open the door and gestured Hannah inside, closing it behind them and locking it.
They went into the dining room which Hannah had passed through last time she was here; the dark-green painted walls, the marble fireplace, the picture of David Nelson looking benevolently down on his wife and her guest.
Rebecca offered Hannah a seat at the table, by far the grandest Hannah had ever sat at. She adjusted the place settings, and sat down opposite her.
