by Robert Gott
Still, Helen said nothing.
‘Aren’t you a little bit curious about this?’ Joe asked.
‘I assume you’ll tell me what it’s about when you’re ready to. I also assume that I’ve just passed some sort of test.’
Joe looked at Titus. He was worried that this little expression of disrespect might cause Titus to choose a different constable.
‘I don’t think curiosity is a weakness, Constable,’ Titus said, ‘but I think your instinct as to when to suppress it is a strength. What we want you to do isn’t dangerous, but I want you to understand that it is outside your normal duties, and that if you agree to it you won’t be able to discuss it with anybody. You will be bound by the Crimes Act as it relates to official secrets. Is that clear?’
‘Yes.’
‘I also want you to understand that this is entirely voluntary. I’m not issuing you with an order.’
‘All right. Is it unreasonable to ask what I’m volunteering for, or would you see that as a failure of my good instincts to shut up?’
Again, Joe was worried that Titus would find Helen Lord’s measured, Bolshie attitude unacceptable, and again he was surprised when Titus responded to it as if her tone was inoffensive.
‘You have a right to know, of course. I wouldn’t expect any officer to blindly obey a request, or even an instruction. Germany and Japan are full of people who do just that, and the consequences for everyone are dire.’
Helen narrowed her eyes at Titus. She wasn’t entirely convinced that he wasn’t playing her for a fool, although she didn’t feel patronised, and she was highly sensitised to that insult. For the moment, she’d suspend her suspicions, and accept Inspector Lambert’s words at face value.
‘You said there was no danger,’ she said.
‘You sound almost disappointed, Constable,’ Joe said.
She couldn’t help herself. She turned to him and said, ‘When you’re a female constable, disappointments have a habit of mounting up.’
‘All right. Well, there will be some danger, in fact — you haven’t seen me skate.’
Titus hadn’t given Joe any advice on how much to tell Helen. Joe thought this might have been as much about jurisdiction as about trust. In going to the Glaciarium, he was working for Intelligence, not Homicide. Joe decided that he wouldn’t link the Quinn murders — which Constable Lord would surely have heard about — to this assignment. Titus had mentioned the Crimes Act, and Joe wished he hadn’t. The Act was designed to deal with espionage and sensitive government matters. Helen Lord couldn’t help but make some connection between what she was being asked to do and the progress of the war.
As they walked to the Glaciarium, Joe told Helen that he was interested in the activities of an instructor there, a woman named Peggy Montford. He didn’t say what those activities were — only that the activities, and the suspicions around them, were vague, and that it was more to do with the people she associated with than it was to do with her. Helen saved him from further entangling himself in his convoluted effort to tell her only as much as he thought she needed to know.
‘I’m just coming along for the ride, sir. I’m just glad to be out from behind a bloody desk.’
‘The “sir” stuff will have to go. I’m Joe, and we’re a couple — a clumsy couple who’ll need help on the ice.’
Helen put her arm through his and started to whistle. After a moment, he caught the tune and joined in.
The Glaciarium was on the south side of the Yarra River, opposite Flinders Street Station. As Helen and Joe went in, the sudden drop in temperature made Joe wish he was wearing a coat. It was busy; American servicemen were either gliding adroitly around the ice, or manhandling their delighted and squealing girlfriends, who were resolutely refusing to acquire the skills that would allow them to skate out of their teachers’ arms. The chilly air was heavy with the scent of cologne. The use of this scent was a habit that Australian soldiers had yet to take up; they preferred the less feminine masking perfume of Lifebuoy soap.
Joe had described Peggy Montford to Helen, and she spotted her even before they’d fitted their skates. Peggy was standing at one of the gaps in the low wall that encircled the rink, calling out encouragement to someone on the ice.
‘She looks young,’ Helen said. ‘She certainly doesn’t look dangerous.’
Joe said nothing. He stood on the blades of his skates and began to make his way towards a gap in the crowd. After a couple of steps, he remembered that this was meant to look like his first time, and so he adjusted his walk accordingly, his arms flailing. Helen did the same, and added some squeals for verisimilitude. They succeeded in drawing attention to themselves by putting on a show of laughter and mutually perilous teetering. When they made it to the wall, they clung to it like limpets. Helen took a first, tentative step onto the ice and immediately grabbed at the wall to stay upright. Joe followed, took two steps, and hit the ice hard. Helen laughed loudly. Children sailing past looked at them contemptuously. Peggy Montford showed no sign that she was aware of them — which was unsurprising, given the number of people skating, falling, and squealing. In a carefully managed display of ineptitude, Helen pushed away from the wall, stomped rather than glided, and sat down next to Joe.
‘Any thoughts?’ she asked.
As they helped each other up clumsily, Joe suggested that he might have to crash into Peggy Montford and knock her over. ‘She’s employed here to give lessons, a few people at a time. I’ll need to make a booking, and I’ll need to make sure I get her and not one of the other instructors.’
‘And you think that knocking her over will endear you to her? Were you one of those boys who thought that girls liked being pinched and punched?’
‘I’m twenty-five and single. What can I say?’
They stumbled convincingly past Peggy Montford, who was demonstrating quite a complicated turn to an American private. He was no beginner, and Joe could see that he was more interested in Peggy than in the manoeuvre she was teaching him.
‘She’s seen us,’ Helen said. ‘That’s a start. We’ll go past her line of sight a couple more times just to make sure she notices our incompetence. Oh, and on one of the passes, I think you need to hurt yourself.’
Joe looked puzzled. They began to move towards Peggy Montford again, with Helen squawking at an annoying pitch. Without warning, she used her right foot to knock Joe’s skates out from under him. He sprawled on the ice, and Helen fell on top of him.
‘It’s your ankle,’ she whispered in his ear. ‘You’ve hurt your ankle. Sorry about the surprise, but it had to look convincing, and you’re not a good actor.’
Joe had no time to argue because Peggy Montford had skated over to them and was asking if they were all right.
‘He’s fine,’ Helen giggled.
‘I don’t think I am, actually. I’m not sure I can stand up. My ankle.’
‘Don’t be such a baby,’ Helen said, and she could feel Peggy Montford’s sympathy for Joe growing. Peggy bent down and manipulated Joe’s ankle. He winced.
‘It’s not broken,’ she said. ‘But it might be sprained, and that can be very painful.’ She shot a glance at Helen, who looked contrite.
‘Let me help you off the ice,’ Peggy said, and she enlisted the help of the American to get Joe to a seat. An examination of the ankle revealed no swelling, so they agreed that it was just a nasty fall, with no harm done.
‘You probably should take lessons,’ Peggy said.
Dora Mansfield would never change her opinion about the quality of Mary Quinn’s acting. As the scriptwriter of The Red Mask, Dora was too proprietorial about her creations to believe that anyone was capable of realising them properly. She had, however, warmed slightly to Mary Quinn herself. Mary had been unfussed by Dora and Constance’s relationship. She’d immediately accepted it as being so unremarkable tha
t she hadn’t asked a single prurient question — which was more than could be said for many of their other visitors. Of course, the shocking deaths of her father and brother could hardly fail to excite sympathy for her. Mary hadn’t spared them the details, and she hadn’t tried to disguise her true feelings for her father. Dora admired that. Somehow, her brutal honesty on that score had made her expressions of fear for her own safety seem more compelling — so much so that Constance and Dora had offered Mary their flat as a sanctuary for as long as she needed it. Mary was grateful, but had insisted that she’d feel more secure at the Windsor, where there’d be people around at all times.
On Boxing Day morning, the three women ate scrambled eggs. They decided that, before going to the Windsor, they’d do something to take Mary’s mind off things. Mary said that she was feeling less nervy than the previous day. Her suite had been booked, but it wouldn’t be available until after lunch. In the meantime, a diversion would be welcome. She didn’t want to go to the cinema — she didn’t relish sitting in the dark — so Constance suggested they go to see the captured Japanese midget submarine in Alexandra Avenue. They could walk from there to the Windsor.
There was a queue to see ‘the only Japanese Midget Submarine on exhibition in the world’. It cost a shilling to walk past the tin can that had brought the war into the heart of Sydney. Dora said that just looking at it made her feel claustrophobic.
‘I wonder if we can work it into a storyline,’ Constance said.
Inspector Lambert had never been inside St Patrick’s Cathedral, although its spire had snagged his eye almost daily. He knew of its most well-known priest, Archbishop Mannix, of course — a man whom Titus distrusted on principle, and who divided opinion like no other church leader. Over the telephone Titus had arranged to meet Father Dougal McGrath, John Quinn’s confessor. ‘Confessor’, the title that McGrath had provided himself, sounded mediaeval to Titus. Having been raised in the fiercely ascetic righteousness of Methodism, Catholicism seemed like an exotic and darkly threatening force to him. At least, it had when he was young.
Now, as he entered the cathedral, he was stunned by the extravagance of its space and the pungency of its air, which carried the scent of wood polish and frankincense. He felt immediately that the cathedral wasn’t just a place in which to pray; it was an uncompromising declaration of power and influence. Protestants in Melbourne might have more money, but St Patrick’s was proof for Catholics that they had God on their side. No wonder my parents hated them, Titus thought. He was glad that life had inoculated him against a belief in God. But, despite his atheism, Titus had to admit that the sombre echoes inside St Patrick’s Cathedral struck him with some force. He and Maude had been to the Buchan caves soon after they’d been married, and he remembered the repeated cliché that the cave was like a cathedral. He wondered if anybody ever suggested the reverse.
His appointment with the priest was for midday, and he’d arrived early in order to explore the cathedral. He had no idea what the protocols were: was he allowed to wander behind the high altar or into the side chapels? He followed an elderly lady to the far end of the cathedral, where she knelt at the railing of a shadowy chapel, having first lit a candle. Titus walked back into the side aisle. As he passed a nest of cubicles, the central door opened and a priest stepped out, startling Titus.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Have you come for Confession?’
‘No, I’m not a Catholic.’
Titus didn’t know why he’d said this. The priest looked mildly surprised. A Protestant in a Catholic church was, Titus supposed, not an everyday occurrence.
‘I’m here to talk to Father McGrath. I’m early, and I’m just having a look around.’
The place was having a strange effect on Titus. He felt that his commonplace words were somehow inappropriate, as if everything said here should be in some way liturgical, or expressed in plainsong.
‘I’m Father McGrath. You’re Inspector Lambert?’
The priest looked to be in his late thirties. He had a good head of black hair that was neatly trimmed and oiled into place. Titus didn’t know the name for what he was wearing — it was a black cassock — but he noted that it was spotless and well-pressed. The white collar at his throat was pristine, and his fingernails were manicured. Father McGrath cared very much about his appearance. No doubt, Titus thought, he was the object of many of his congregation’s fantasies, and no doubt he knew it. Perhaps he’d heard the odd, gratifying confession along these lines.
The priest indicated a pew. Titus hesitated.
‘Please, sit down,’ Father McGrath said. ‘We can talk here. As you can see, there are very few people about. Unless you’d be more comfortable in the sacristy? It’s certainly more private.’
Not being sure what a sacristy was, Titus suggested they take advantage of the weather and go for a walk. Outside the cathedral, Titus felt with relief the sensation of having returned to a familiar world.
‘It’s terrible news about John Quinn and his son,’ Father McGrath said.
‘You know about their deaths? I don’t think I mentioned it when I telephoned.’
‘No, Inspector, you didn’t, but we have a large congregation here, and some of them are neighbours of the Quinn family. I was told yesterday, after Mass. I thought something must be wrong because I was expecting John Quinn to attend midnight Mass the previous evening, but he didn’t.’
‘May I ask you what your relationship was with the Quinn family?’
‘I was their parish priest, and, as I said to you, I was John Quinn’s confessor.’
‘Did he have much to confess?’
‘Inspector, I’m sure you’re aware that the seal of the confessional can’t be broken.’
‘Did you hear the confessions of his two children?’
‘No. Mary Quinn rarely came to church, and as far I know she didn’t take advantage of the Sacrament of Confession.’
‘Advantage?’
‘Confession heals and uplifts the spirit, Inspector. To know absolutely that God has forgiven a transgression or a weakness is a wonderful feeling.’
‘And Xavier Quinn?’
‘Very sad. Xavier was a disturbed young man. He believed he was an ecstatic, like St Francis of Assisi.’
‘And you didn’t think he was?’
Father McGrath stopped. He looked at Titus and smiled. ‘This is not the fourteenth century, Inspector. We are a modern church.’
‘Did you hear his confession?’
‘What difference would it make?’
‘You might have had insights into his state of mind that wouldn’t breach the seal of the confessional.’
‘It’s hardly an insight to diagnose Xavier as having been mentally ill. Do you believe he is implicated somehow in these deaths?’
‘Only in the sense that he was a victim, and that victims mostly know their killers. Murder is rarely a random event.’
‘So these were murders, then? I was unsure. The details I was given were sketchy.’
‘We believe both men were murdered, and it turns out that at least one of them had quite a close relationship with you. Can you account for your whereabouts on Christmas Eve?’
Father McGrath refused to be either shocked or affronted by the question.
‘I was here, at the cathedral, all day and all night, as a matter of fact. I was either saying Mass, hearing confessions, or talking to members of our congregation. You can confidently eliminate me from your enquiries.’
He turned his sanctimonious smile once more on Titus.
‘I appreciate you giving me credit for not believing myself to be above the law, Inspector. Or perhaps you expected me to be offended, and are disappointed by my response?’
Titus was becoming impatient.
‘This isn’t a game, Father. Two men have been murdered, and
you may know something that could prove useful to us.’
‘Yes, I’m sorry. I don’t think, though, that I can help you.’
‘Were you aware that the Quinn family was not a happy one?’
‘Yes. John Quinn often spoke about his estrangement from his children — outside the confessional. He couldn’t speak to either of them. It caused him great grief.’
‘Did he tell you why?’
‘I know he kept a mistress, if that’s what you’re getting at. That subject wasn’t confined to the confessional either. He intended to marry her, and then she was killed in an accident. I tried to be of use to John in his grief. At the time, Mary, especially, took advantage of his vulnerability and treated him callously. She could never forgive him for betraying her mother.’
‘That was your job.’
‘John had made his peace with God over these matters, and he became resigned to the fact that he’d never make his peace with his children.’
‘Did you ever discuss politics with John Quinn?’
‘I’m a priest, Inspector. Politics is not my bailiwick.’
Titus felt a twinge of irritation at the use of such an archaic word.
‘Do you have any idea who might have wanted to kill John Quinn, or his son?’
‘I can tell you with a clear conscience that I can’t think of anybody who deserves to be a suspect, and I can’t think of anything that John Quinn ever told me, either in or out of the confessional, that could help you. Is it possible that this was a burglary gone wrong — that murder wasn’t the primary motive?’
‘I’m afraid that such information must remain under the seal of Homicide,’ Titus said, terminating the interview.
Sheila Draper’s landlady wasn’t the nosey termagant of cliché. She respected the privacy of her boarders, and her interest in their private lives usually went no further than an occasional enquiry about their health. She had no rules about gentlemen callers, and there was no curfew on arrivals and departures. Under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t, therefore, have approached Miss Draper’s door. However, she’d noticed that the door was ajar a few hours before. Pilfering from someone else’s rooms was unheard of in Mrs Watson’s boarding house; besides, the other two girls who boarded there were away with family for Christmas. Seeing the door still open, Mrs Watson thought she should check that everything was all right.
