The Port Fairy Murders

by Robert Gott

  Halloran took them and looked closely at the image.

  ‘I don’t know him, but I wouldn’t want to run into him in a dark alley. I’ll get these circulated. Maybe they’ll jog someone’s memory. It’s not a face you’d forget in a hurry. How do you want to proceed, Titus?’

  ‘Those three names need to be visited. It’s a long shot, but George Starling might have gone to ground with one of them. Is your brother really worth visiting?’

  ‘If you mean socially, no. In relation to Nazi sympathies, yes. He’s been a big fan since the Thirties. I haven’t spoken to him since the beginning of the war, and I’d rather not break that habit, so I’d appreciate it if one of your people did the honours there.’

  ‘Of course,’ Titus said. ‘These other two …’ he checked their names ‘… Hardy Truscott and Maria Pluschow — are they violent people?’

  ‘Neither of them has a record of any kind. Truscott lives in a perversely situated house overlooking the Hopkins River. The house faces away from the view. If you look at it from the far side of the river, where you’d expect a decent window, there’s a blank wall. He built the bloody house, so I suppose that tells you a great deal about his style. Maria Pluschow lives out on the road to Port Fairy. She’s a widow, and not German herself — she married a German. She used to walk around looking like a storybook frau, but the braids have gone now, and she’s stopped raising the swastika on Hitler’s birthday. She confines her prejudices to Catholics these days, but that’s par for the course here. If you want to live dangerously, walk into the Lutheran church and yell out Daniel Mannix’s name.’

  In a strategic move, David Reilly suggested that he call on Maria Pluschow.

  ‘You’ll need to be driven out there.’

  ‘Sergeant Reilly can use our car. You don’t need to deploy one of your men. I imagine you’re short-staffed.’

  ‘Well, as a matter of fact, we’re not really run off our feet. However, Sergeant Reilly certainly won’t require protection. Perhaps Constable Lord can visit my brother. He’ll be quietly appalled that policewomen aren’t just a nasty rumour. You and I can make a house call on Mr Truscott, Titus. We’ll take the coal-burning vehicle. It’s slow, but Truscott is close by. By the time we get back here, Constable Manton should have returned, and he can tell you himself what he found out at John Starling’s place.’

  ‘We’ll need to go out there ourselves and look through the house.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Each of them took a picture of George Starling before leaving Halloran’s office.

  INSPECTOR LAMBERT AND Inspector Halloran didn’t drive directly to Hardy Truscott’s house. Greg wanted to show Titus the view of the house from the opposite side of the Hopkins River.

  ‘I want you to see for yourself,’ Greg said, ‘the difference between what someone can aspire to and what someone is capable of.’

  Truscott’s rejection of what would have been a beautiful outlook seemed inexplicable. His house was perched on top of an escarpment, with a mean, narrow set of steps leading to a back door. There was a single small window above this door, but the occupier would need to climb a ladder to look out of it.

  ‘Astonishing,’ Titus said.

  ‘He should have been interned on architectural grounds.’

  ‘What do you know about him?’

  ‘Not a great deal. I’m tempted to say he’s harmless, but the material you sent me to read was a bit of an eye-opener. Fortunately, the local fascists tended to be loners. They tried to get the odd meeting going, but, honestly, they couldn’t organise a fuck in a brothel, which is why someone like John Starling went to Melbourne to join a group there.’

  ‘I didn’t know your brother was attracted to Nazism.’

  ‘He was a bully, and he was stupid, so National Socialism was a comfortable fit. We never got on, even as children. He’s a few years older, and he got big very early — not fat, just big, bulky. By the time he was 16 he was an ill-tempered old man. He terrified Mum and me, and dad couldn’t do anything. He was all hollowed out when he came back from the first war. He barely spoke. I watched one day as Stanley pushed Mum up against a wall and screamed obscenities at her. Dad sat at the table, and his face was expressionless. He was seeing it happen, but it was as if it didn’t register, or maybe it couldn’t compete with whatever else was playing behind his eyes. When Dad did nothing the brakes were off, and Stanley got a taste for terrorising us. I can’t begin to tell you how much I hated him, Titus.’

  ‘How did you stop him?’

  ‘I was kid. I didn’t stop him. He left home. Anti-climactic, huh? He just left home, and I didn’t see him again until I was a copper. By then he’d begun to cultivate people like Starling and Truscott, and he tried to recruit me — can you believe it? We even had earnest conversations about how well Germany was doing. He gave me a copy of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Christ, have read that claptrap? If the bastard didn’t look so much like me, I’d swear he was a fucking cuckoo in the nest.’

  ‘Hence the moustache?’

  ‘Thank you, Doctor Freud.’

  ‘You sent Constable Lord to confront this man, Greg. Why?’

  ‘Oh, she’s in no physical danger. Stanley’s in a wheelchair now. He was hit by a car in Melbourne in 1938 — and it was just an accident. He was drunk. The driver was a vicar.’

  ‘The vicar was drunk?’

  ‘No, Stanley was. He just wandered into the road. The poor bloody vicar still hasn’t recovered. He sends Stanley money, and Stanley is such a prick that he takes it. I suppose the vicar finds it difficult to accept that he’s done everyone a favour.’

  ‘And you’re sure Constable Lord will be safe there, on her own?’

  ‘Titus, I wouldn’t have sent a woman into a dangerous situation. She has a much better chance of getting information out of him, if there’s any information to get. He’ll assume she’s not worth a cracker. He has a fairly low opinion of women. He’ll be unguarded, and she strikes me as the kind of person who’ll be able to take advantage of that.’

  ‘He’d be very foolish to underestimate Constable Lord. Shall we find the front door of this abomination and beard Hardy Truscott?’

  Hardy Truscott was short, stout, and rather tweedy, although his tweeds were of an expensive cut. He was myopic, and wore round spectacles that magnified his eyes, which were a dull brown. His bald pate was spattered with age marks. When he saw Greg Halloran on his doorstep he sighed heavily, but invited him in without complaint. The house was surprisingly cheery, and where Titus had expected it to be dark and gloomy, it was light and uncluttered. Hardy Truscott was a fussy man. There were paintings on the wall, mostly landscapes of a European type. Joe Sable would have been able to assess their worth, but Titus had little understanding of art. Greg Halloran wasted no time.

  ‘John Starling is dead. Did you know that?’

  ‘I haven’t seen Starling in years. Why would I know whether he’d died or gone to blazes?’

  ‘You used to have a bit to do with him.’

  Truscott laughed.

  ‘It was the Thirties, Halloran. We thought we had something in common. It didn’t take long to realise that Starling was a dumb thug.’

  Titus hadn’t intended to speak until he’d been identified, but the image of this carefully groomed little man, all the ugly bits of National Socialism tidied away into comfortable tweed and carefully chosen furniture, was an intolerable strain on his patience.

  ‘I would have thought that dumb thugs were just what Dr Goebbels ordered,’ he said.

  ‘This is Inspector Lambert from Homicide in Melbourne.’ Halloran spoke quickly. He’d seen Truscott’s lip curl in readiness of making a disdainful query as to Titus’s identity.

  ‘Homicide?’ Truscott said. ‘You have my full attention, Inspector. John Starling was murdered,
was he?’

  Neither policeman said anything.

  ‘And you think I might have killed him? Do you seriously think …?’

  Titus produced the sketch of George Starling and handed it roughly to Truscott, who looked at it closely.

  ‘Have you had any contact with this man?’

  ‘So is this your chief suspect, then?’

  ‘Do you know him?’

  ‘No. I can’t say I do.’

  ‘Did you ever meet John Starling’s son, George?’ Halloran asked.

  ‘He was at one or two early meetings, before I got the measure of Starling’s stupidity. He used to treat his boy like an animal. Disgusting. He was fat, I remember that. His father used to call him “Fatso”. Surly kid, but I’d be surly, too, if my dad called me Fatso in front of other people.’

  ‘So you haven’t seen George Starling for quite some time?’

  ‘Not since then — so not for, what, ten years maybe? Maybe more.’ Truscott looked at the sketch again. ‘Oh, I see. This is him. This is George. Yes, I can see that. Suck all the fat out of those cheeks and this is what he’d look like. He killed his father?’ Truscott laughed. ‘Patricide. It couldn’t happen to a nicer bloke.’

  ‘Why were you attracted to National Socialism, Mr Truscott?’ Titus asked.

  Truscott took the question in his stride, showing no irritation or outrage.

  ‘Perhaps we should sit down,’ he said, ‘and I’ll be glad to tell you.’

  When all three were seated, Truscott reached for a book on the shelf beside him and pulled it out.

  ‘A very great man wrote this book. You won’t have heard of him. His name is Alexander Rud Mills.’

  Both Lambert and Halloran were startled by the book’s cover, the most prominent feature of which was a swastika.

  ‘Don’t be dismayed, gentlemen. This is a harmless book of poetry. Hael, Odin!. Flick through it, by all means.’

  He gave the book to Titus.

  ‘I’ve heard of Mills,’ Titus said.

  Truscott was impressed.

  ‘Not for reasons you might admire, Mr Truscott. Mills has come to the attention of the authorities on account of his unpleasant politics. They found him too ridiculous to bother with.’

  ‘A.R. Mills is not interested in politics. His quest is a spiritual one.’

  Titus opened the book and found its pages heavily underscored, indicating passages that had particularly taken Truscott’s fancy. One poem, ‘The Jew’, was especially heavily decorated, and included marginalia in what Titus presumed was Truscott’s own hand. The words ‘Jew thought’ and ‘equality’s pit’ had been circled.

  ‘What is “Jew thought”, Mr Truscott?’

  Truscott leaned forward, unable to resist answering.

  ‘Jew thought, Inspector, is at the heart of every rotten principle espoused by lazy Christians. They don’t even know that their religion is just a branch of Jew thought. Jewish-Christianity is a disease, and it’s not treason to say so. A.R. Mills has the cure, and it’s not Nazism, not as you know it, so you needn’t bother shopping me to Military Intelligence. I’m no fifth columnist.’

  ‘So what are you?’

  ‘I suppose you’d call me an Odinist.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Titus said. ‘A pagan.’

  Truscott smiled.

  ‘I wouldn’t expect someone of your plodding intelligence — excuse me, but why else would you become a policeman? — to understand.’

  ‘Try me.’

  ‘I’m not interested in National Socialism as a force for political change. That’s something I could never drum into the heads of dullards like Starling and his friends. Salvation is to be found among the old gods, not the Jew god, and the way to them lies within us all, not in some man-made construct like Nazism.’

  ‘Salvation from what?’ Halloran asked.

  ‘From the equality pit, as Mills calls it. Equality is a Jewish-Christian lie. Blood matters. Blood is everything.’ Truscott picked up another book, its title obscured by the brown paper that protected the cover. He read:

  The principle of equality is at war with all God’s nature — the enforcement of that principle is a war on all vitality and health.

  ‘That’s Mills. Democracy doesn’t work. Democracy is Jew thought.’

  A nation under Democracy moves onward to Bolshevism and comes under the manipulation of soul destroyers and government by Jews. A return to our own Father spirit in God is the only way out. It is our only road to strength. Our own myths, our own heroes and our own holy places point the way. Odinists and Odinists only will preserve our race and someday revive our nation.

  He stopped reading. Lambert and Halloran were watching him, their faces composed. Both were experienced enough to deny Truscott a clue as to the effect of his rant.

  ‘You’ll see,’ Truscott said, in a tone that suggested he was rounding out his argument. ‘The Aryan race is the great builder of culture. If the white people in this country turn to Odin, cultural revival is assured. We can’t worship the spirit of another race, and Christianity worships the spirit of the Jew. Deliverance will come from our worship of Odin, our own God — not someone else’s.’

  Halloran had heard enough.

  ‘You’ll let us know, won’t you, if George Starling makes contact?’

  ‘Why would he?’

  ‘Maybe he’s as crazy as you are.’

  ‘I’d have nothing to say to the offspring of John Starling. He wouldn’t be welcome in my house.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Although, if I did run into him, I’d certainly congratulate him on killing his father.’

  ‘John Starling wasn’t murdered, Mr Truscott.’

  Titus said, ‘We’ll see ourselves out.’

  HELEN LORD PULLED up outside the address she’d been given by Inspector Halloran. There’d been no time to brief her on what she might expect, but she wasn’t bothered by this. It was a routine inquiry, and she preferred making such inquiries without preconceptions imposed by someone else’s assessment of a person’s character. In truth, of course, Halloran’s thumbnail sketch of his brother as ‘a deeply unpleasant man’ had fixed Stanley Halloran in her mind as someone of whom to be wary. The house, a California bungalow that looked as if it might have been built in the 1920s, was obscured by a garden that had become unruly, its growth checked by desultory clipping of the most vigorous branches that had been left to rot where they’d fallen. Helen opened the gate, which had been oiled sufficiently recently to utter only a small squeal of resistance. She knocked on the door. There was no response. She was about to knock again when a voice called, ‘Who is it? What do you want?’

  ‘I want to speak to Mr Stanley Halloran.’

  ‘Who wants to speak to Stanley Halloran?’

  ‘My name is Helen Lord.’

  Helen thought it politic to announce her credentials only after she’d gained entry. Nazi admirers, despite the secretiveness of their sympathies, had more than probably been visited by one or another of the state or federal agencies whose job it was to track them. Stanley Halloran, with a brother who was a prominent policeman, would doubtless have been harried by at least one of the special branches — the Commonwealth Investigation Branch, perhaps, or the Commonwealth Security Service.

  ‘So? What do you want?’

  ‘I’m afraid I have some bad news, but I need to speak to Mr Stanley Halloran personally.’

  ‘What kind of bad news?’

  ‘Please, can we stop shouting at each other through the door? This won’t take a moment.’

  There was silence for a few seconds. The lock was turned, and the door was flung open. In a bar of sunlight, Helen saw a man seated in a wheelchair, his face in shadow. He was wearing a pair of shorts and nothing else — not unseasonable attire on such a hot day, but
Helen noticed a crumpled shirt against the skirting board, and knew that he had taken it off in a deliberate attempt to give offence. She stepped into the house quickly, and closed the door behind her — an action that took the man by surprise.

  ‘Hey, who said you could come in?’

  Now that she could see his face, the resemblance to his brother was remarkable.

  ‘I’m in, Mr Halloran, so that saves you the bother of asking me.’

  She walked away from him, towards the living room, forcing him to follow her.

  ‘You can’t just walk into my house.’

  ‘If you have a complaint, call your brother at the station. My name is Constable Helen Lord. Melbourne Homicide.’

  ‘Constable? You’re a fucking walloper?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Halloran, I’m a fucking walloper, and I’m the daughter of a fucking walloper.’

  ‘Christ, they must be desperate. A tough-talking sheila — whatever next?’

  Helen looked at him. His face had aged well, but his body had given up pretending it was anything other than its 60-odd years. It was thin and wiry, but also somehow slack and fallen, and the hair that grew on it was piebald and dry, like a withered, invasive creeper. Helen had no wish to prolong this encounter. She unfolded the sketch of George Starling and handed it to Stanley Halloran.

  ‘Do you know this person?’

  He looked at it.

  ‘What if I do?’

  Helen decided not to dance around the subject.

  ‘I’m not here on a social call, Mr Halloran. I’m here as part of an ongoing homicide investigation. Now do you know this man or not?’

  ‘You think this bloke’s killed someone?’ He laughed. ‘If he did, he’s grown some balls since I last saw him. That’s George Starling. A skinny George Starling, but it’s him all right. Last time I saw him, he was a pathetic, whining fat boy. I knew his father.’

  ‘Knew?’

  ‘Haven’t seen him for years. Thick as four planks, he is.’

  ‘John Starling is dead, Mr Halloran.’