The Holiday Murders

by Robert Gott

  Chafer managed to invest even this expression of success with disdain.

  Titus had exerted his considerable influence to ensure that the police sketch of Jones was photographed and printed with unusual speed. By the time Joe returned from Victoria Barracks, a sufficient number had been run off to cover businesses within a reasonable circumference of the Windsor Hotel. Titus had decided that delivering the picture to shopkeepers would be a good place to start, and that it just might turn something up. The catch was that only one constable was available to help, so Joe and Helen would have to hit the pavements. Neither objected. Joe’s visit to Tom Chafer had taken the edge off his concern for the welfare of Group Captain Mackenzie. At least now there was the real probability of finding Ptolemy Jones. For her part, Helen was glad to be doing something practical.

  They started at the Windsor together. When they showed the sketch to the concierge and told him that the subject was wanted in connection with serious crimes, the gatekeeper hesitated for just a moment before saying that he didn’t recognise him. Both Joe and Helen noticed the hesitation, and knew it meant that the concierge was lying. He refused to change his story, though, even when Joe pointed out that it would go badly for him if it turned out that he wasn’t being entirely truthful.

  ‘If he’s threatened you in some way, you should tell us now,’ Joe said.

  The concierge shook his head.

  Outside the Windsor, Joe and Helen decided to split up and to meet back at Russell Street a couple of hours later.

  Joe returned to Russell Street first. He’d had no success. All the shopkeepers who’d looked at the picture said that if they’d seen that person, they’d certainly have remembered him, but that he’d never been in their shops. It was a little dispiriting to think that Jack Ables had been the only person to see Ptolemy Jones the previous afternoon. Perhaps Inspector Lambert had been right, and Joe had imposed a false identification on Ables’s quick, impressionistic sketch. Perhaps they were looking in the wrong place. If so, it was an error of judgement that could cost Mary Quinn her life.

  Helen Lord, similarly, had met with no success. She folded the last few flyers and put them in a pocket, almost missing ‘Clarry’s Café’. It was only because she collided with a man — who turned out to be Clarry — that she realised the doorway he was exiting from belonged to a cafeteria. The man said nothing and made to move off.

  ‘Is this your place?’ she asked.

  ‘What if it is?’

  Helen was unsurprised by the man’s unpleasantness, and she knew that it would be exacerbated when she announced herself as a policewoman.

  ‘My name is Constable Helen Lord, and I’m not interested in your business. What I am interested in is whether or not you’ve seen this man in the area.’

  She produced a folded flyer and showed it to him.

  ‘Why are you asking me?’ Clarry asked, before looking at it.

  ‘I’ve been asking shop-owners all day. You’re the last.’

  Clarry Brown ran his eyes over the picture and recognised Jones immediately. He’d turned his face away from Helen Lord, not deliberately, but because the sun was in his eyes. Consequently, she didn’t see the involuntary tensing of his muscles.

  ‘What’s this bird wanted for?’ he asked.

  ‘We just want to talk to him.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘We want to eliminate him from our enquiries.’

  ‘Enquiries about what?’

  ‘Have you seen him?’

  ‘No.’

  Having spent a good few hours hearing ‘No’, Clarry Brown’s response raised no suspicions in Helen. She accepted the denial at face value. It wasn’t until much later that she thought it odd the way the man had put the flyer into his pocket without offering to return it. Every other person she’d shown the picture to had automatically given it back.

  Clarry Brown had been more shaken than he’d let on by the encounter with the policewoman. Apart from the shock of seeing the picture she’d shown him, the fact that the police were now hiring women seemed to him a symptom of how decadent society had become. ‘Decadent’ was a word he’d learned from Ptolemy Jones. The bracing clarity of National Socialism was definitely what Australia needed.

  After the policewoman walked away, Brown took the flyer out of his pocket and stared at it. He was shocked that Jones had put himself in the position of being a person of interest to the police, let alone of allowing someone to get close enough to create a remarkable likeness of him. A part of Clarry was pleased that Jones seemed to have made a mistake, seemed to have been careless. He felt that the flyer shifted the balance of power slightly in his favour. He couldn’t articulate how — it was just a feeling that this meant something important, and that he could use it to unsettle Jones’s nasty little group. He didn’t want to bring Jones down. Not that. Jones was his saviour, after all. Still.

  Clarry shook his head quickly. What was he thinking? How had these traitorous thoughts entered his head? It wasn’t Jones he wanted to hurt. No — he wanted to get closer to him. If there was one person fewer at the table when Jones held his meetings, then perhaps he, Clarry Brown, would be offered the vacant seat. Thoughts of disposing of the blond simpleton, Mark, returned, and with these thoughts came the notion that Jones couldn’t have made a mistake, that he hadn’t been careless. He must have been betrayed.

  Clarry couldn’t wait to present his theory to Jones and to attempt to cast doubt on the simpleton’s loyalty in the process. All it would take would be the tiniest inkling of a suspicion, and then he could dispose of Mark. He’d make sure the body was never found, so the others would assume he’d just taken himself off, unable to show his face because of his betrayal.

  Joe Sable arrived at the Lamberts’ house in Brunswick at eight o’clock. Helen Lord was already there, among a small group in the backyard. Much of the garden had been turned over to the growing of vegetables, although a small patch had been sown with poppies. Joe recognised one or two people from Russell Street, but the other half-dozen guests were unknown to him. Having been introduced to them all, he was discreetly excised by Maude Lambert, who put her hand on his arm and pulled him away gently. In the kitchen, as she cut sandwiches into ribbons, she took Joe completely by surprise by asking where her brother, Tom, was.

  ‘I haven’t been able to reach him for days — not at work and not at home. What have you done with him, Joe?’

  The question was delivered in a tone that Joe could only have described as steely light-heartedness. He was momentarily confused, and his confusion provided Maude with all the confirmation she needed.

  ‘Will Tom be coming here tonight, Joe?’

  There was no frivolity in her voice, and Joe saw in the expression on her face what a formidable woman she was. At the same time, he was annoyed that Titus had passed on to Maude information that ought not to have left Russell Street, even though all she could know was that he’d been sent by Titus to interview Tom about The Publicist. Joe understood now why Helen Lord had had such qualms about Titus including his wife in all aspects of an investigation.

  ‘No, Mrs Lambert, he won’t. At least, I don’t think he will. I can’t say for sure, because I don’t know.’

  ‘Is he safe?’

  There was a moment’s hesitation before Joe said, ‘Yes.’

  Maude didn’t let him off the hook.

  ‘You can’t say that with any certainty, can you?’

  ‘No, but is anybody ever safe? The people in your backyard, are they safe, absolutely safe, just standing there?’

  ‘That’s fatuous, Joe. I’m not blaming you for whatever Tom signed on for. He’s a grown man, and bored to death at Victoria Barracks. If, however, he is in danger, I’d appreciate your honesty.’

  ‘I’m caught in a bind here, Mrs Lambert. There are certain operational matters I’m simply n
ot at liberty to discuss.’

  ‘Not even with Titus?’

  Joe blushed.

  ‘I see,’ Maude said. ‘I won’t press you. Can you take these sandwiches outside.’

  Joe realised that he’d handled this encounter with Maude Lambert badly. Why hadn’t he just told her the truth, or enough of the truth to avoid the rightful charge of having deliberately withheld information? In breaching his previously open relationship with Inspector Lambert, Joe knew that using the defence of the obligations imposed on him by the Crimes Act wouldn’t wash. Lambert would accept the defence — how could he not? — but he’d feel that when Joe’s loyalty had been tested, he’d chosen Intelligence over Homicide, despite Joe’s previous assurance to him that this would never happen. Maude was sure to tell Titus that her brother had become involved somehow, and Titus would know that Joe had chosen to keep this from him. And what if Titus discovered that Joe had confided in Helen?

  Joe passed among the guests, playing waiter with the sandwiches, and, when he reached Helen, said quietly, ‘Could I talk to you for a minute?’

  The backyard was too small to provide a private corner, so they moved to the side of the house, where saw-toothed ferns grew in profusion.

  ‘I’m in a pickle,’ Joe said. ‘Maude Lambert knows that something is up with Tom Mackenzie.’

  ‘Of course she does,’ Helen said. ‘You gave that away this afternoon.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Are you kidding? Do you think you got away with that, “I didn’t think Tom was the party type” comment? You might as well have held up a big placard saying, “Tom Mackenzie is working for me.”’

  ‘Was it that obvious?’

  ‘After you left, Lambert asked me if I knew anything.’

  ‘You didn’t say anything, did you?’

  Helen Lord was so instantly offended by this question that she uttered a small gasp before turning on her heel and walking away. It took only a second for Joe’s initial dismay to be replaced by an awful feeling that what he’d just done went far beyond the commission of a faux pas. Rising anxiety caused his heart to flutter, and, at the first sign of this, his anxiety increased. By focussing on the ground in front of him, he managed to make it back into the house, down the corridor, and out into the street. There, he leaned against a car, hoping that his heart would settle. It did, and yet a great rush of nausea overwhelmed him, and he was sick in the gutter.

  Returning to the Lambert’s New Year’s Eve party was impossible. There was nothing for him there. He couldn’t bear the pretence of sociability when he’d just made himself a pariah. Perhaps tomorrow, at the start of a new year, he’d put things to rights. Without saying goodbye, a rudeness he now thought would surprise no one, he began to walk back to his flat in Princes Hill.

  Rosh Pinah, he thought as he pushed open his front door. Spare me.

  As the door clicked shut, the telephone rang. It was Ptolemy Jones. ‘This is the fourth time I’ve rung,’ he said. ‘Tonight at eleven. Rainbow Hall, Commercial Road, Prahran. Be there.’ He hung up.

  Joe’s first thought was, How did he get my number? He’d given it to Sheila Draper, and she might have given it to Mary Quinn. If Jones had kidnapped Mary, he could have extracted it from her. No, that couldn’t be right. Why would he associate Joe with Mary in the first place? Jones must have got the number from Tom Mackenzie. When Joe considered this, it sent a fizz of panic through his body —Tom wouldn’t have volunteered his number.

  It was close to ten o’clock. Joe would have to catch a tram to Flinders Street Station and a train to Prahran. He didn’t think about how he might get home afterwards, nor did he give any thought to the alternative of not going. Joe assumed this to be a meeting of Our Nation, and at the very least he hoped to see Tom there. If he found him there, safe and sound, Joe could ease his conscience by reporting that fact to Titus.

  As Joe set out, he had the nervous thought that there were only two people in the world who knew his destination — himself and Ptolemy Jones. He was foolish to have let himself be put in this position, but he had no choice — or no choice that he was prepared to exercise.

  Joe found the hall without difficulty, just a few minutes from the station. It was a small, weatherboard building, undistinguished in every way — exactly the sort of place that an organisation without much money could afford to rent for an evening. Perhaps, Joe thought, it was used by a scout troop or some grim Christian Ladies’ group that met to knit socks for the army.

  There were several men lurking near the entrance — even though they were just shadows, there was something furtive about them. The door to the hall opened, and a dull light spilled into the porch. The men went in, but Joe held back. After a few minutes, more men turned up and continued to file in, until Joe estimated the audience to have reached about fifty. He was surprised. Our Nation was obviously recruiting rapidly, which made him uneasy. There was no sign of Jones. He must have been inside all along.

  Joe entered the hall, feeling that there was some safety in numbers, even if those numbers were Nazis. Chairs had been set up, and most of them were occupied. At the front, a portable screen had been installed; at the rear, a movie projector was being tinkered with by a bald man in his late forties. The man didn’t look up as Joe entered and took a seat as inconspicuously as he could. No one spoke. It was as if this was a roomful of reluctant strangers in church. Jones was nowhere to be seen, and none of the men — they were all men — seated in the dim light was familiar to Joe.

  The man who had been fiddling with the projector walked to the front of the room and announced in a high voice that just as soon as he’d collected ten shillings from everyone, the evening could get under way.

  ‘And I promise you that you won’t be disappointed. We’ve got some travelogues and some fillums from Europe. It’ll be money well spent, gentlemen.’

  With the entrance money duly collected, the single, naked bulb that had illuminated the hall was switched off. Joe tensed his muscles in expectation of violence. If anything was to happen to him, he thought, it would happen in these few seconds before his eyes had become accustomed to the darkness. Joe instinctively leaned forward in his seat, as if this might protect him from a blow aimed at head height. But no blow came.

  The sound of the projector filled the room, and light burst from it. The screen was filled with a grainy landscape of palm trees and beachfront, but there was no sound. A line of bare-breasted Tahitian ladies danced across the screen, with the camera lingering insistently on their endowments. Clearly, this was more bodylogue than travelogue; but, after ten minutes of being exposed to sinuous conga lines of native women, the audience became restless. Joe realised that they’d come to this hall on New Year’s Eve, and paid their good money, for real pornography; Tahitian beauties didn’t fit the bill.

  In a few seconds, a short film called Easy Money began. This was more satisfactory from the audience’s point of view. Again, there was no sound, but the quality of the images was better. It looked American to Joe, and the ladies who paraded before the camera and stripped down to nothing could have stepped from the chorus line of any Busby Berkeley extravaganza. They had the same forced smiles on their faces, and were oddly sexless. When naked, each of them stood for a few seconds, as if modelling the memory of a swimsuit, before surrendering the stage to the next artiste. The first few women, when they revealed their pubic hair, elicited wolf whistles from the audience, but repetition soon dulled the response. The next film had the promisingly lurid title of Women: how we like them. But it was more of the same, and the reel broke halfway through.

  ‘Patience, gentlemen,’ the projectionist said. ‘I’ve got a couple of beaut fillums from France coming up.’

  He played one of these next. Joe suspected he’d been saving them for last, but he’d taken the measure of the room and thought better of delaying. The film had obviously b
een made during the 1920s, and it was scratchy and jumpy, but it had the advantage of being true pornography. It was, in fact, the first pornography that Joe had ever seen, and he found it startling. It involved nuns with hairy armpits, priapic priests, a tradesman who explored the plumbing of both sexes, and a Pomeranian dog that did its own unrestricted exploring.

  It ran for only a few minutes, and was greeted with hoots of approval. Joe wondered what the cast of the film was doing nowadays. Another American film, Tease for Two, followed; this was more gynaecological than its predecessors, and generated a good round of applause. The man in this film was masked, and the woman wasn’t, as if he had a reputation worth protecting and she didn’t.

  ‘This next one is from our friends at the Melbourne Nudist Club,’ the projectionist said. ‘I haven’t seen it myself yet, but I’m sure it’ll be very picturesque. They always do a lovely job. We’ll get back to the other sort straight afterwards.’

  As the first image flickered into movement, Joe was enveloped in a fog of dread. It was Candlebark Hill, inexpertly captured by someone unfamiliar with using a camera. There were no people in the shot, which was of the house — first blurry, then sharp, then blurry again, and again sharp. The screen went black, and the next shot was a cut to the inside of the house. The paintings on the walls left Joe in no doubt that this was Magill’s house.

  The camera moved through the empty interior, and somehow the absence of people was menacing. It wasn’t just Joe who felt this — the audience was silent. The screen went black again. The next shot was taken outside, among the copse of candlebarks that Mitchell Magill’s father had planted. The camera swung around to focus on Ptolemy Jones leaning against a tree. He was masked, but his tattoo was clearly visible, and his body unmistakeable, even with its distracting erection. He was looking beyond the lens: when it swivelled to follow his gaze, it revealed a man and a woman, both naked and both tied to trees. They were too far away to be identifiable, but Joe knew they were Mary Quinn and Tom Mackenzie.