‘No, it suits me fine.’ She gave her brief smile. ‘There’s a program I’m following on the radio; almost time to switch on. I thought I’d make another cuppa first – what about you?’
I faked a yawn. ‘No thanks. I’ve a phone call to make. Then I’ll be off to bed. Big day tomorrow – I found Palmer’s cellar. At the old hut on the boundary. Literally fell over it in that I caught my foot in the trapdoor. I’ll get into it in the morning and see what’s what.’
‘Really? So you had it right after all.’ She shook her head wonderingly. ‘But what an extraordinary place to leave something – and how could he know that you’d ever find it?’
‘I’ve no idea. Maybe Dad knew about it and Palmer just assumed I would? Anyway, we’ll see what’s what in the morning.’
After breakfast the next day I found Joe swinging an axe on the wood heap. I pushed the old wheelbarrow across to load the chunks of wood and once he had wheeled it back I made my request.
‘Yeah, o’ course,’ he replied. ‘There’s one of them foldin’ ladders in the workshop. And a crowbar, you say?’
‘Something to lever with, anyway. There’s a metal handle on the top, but I couldn’t shift it.’
‘I’ll grab one then. You might need a torch, eh?’
‘That’s an idea,’ I agreed. ‘I’ll run back to the house for it. We’ll take the Nissan.’
‘Right. I’ll get it loaded then.’
Ten minutes later we were on our way, the rumble of the vehicle’s motor cutting through the morning’s silence. I felt Joe’s gaze before he spoke.
‘I been past that old hut a million times. Never knew it had a cellar. How’d you come to spot it?’
‘I got my foot caught under the handle in the dark. The roly-poly had piled up on it.’
‘Amazin’ what this country can hide,’ he observed. ‘Shouldn’t think there’d be anythin’ down there, but. Not after all this time.’
‘I’m hoping,’ I said, ‘that it’s where my uncle stashed a box that he left me. He said something about a cellar. So this has to be it – I’ve looked everywhere else.’
‘Ah,’ his glance was shrewd. ‘That’s what the shepherd’s hut was about then. Had me wonderin’.’ He scratched his jaw in thought. ‘So how would your uncle have known about it? I mean, fair enough, he was managin’ the joint – but I work here and never seen it . . .’
‘You forget that he grew up here – I suppose my grandfather might even have known and told him about it. It was his father that dug it.’ I swung the Nissan off the road and ran it up into my previous space under the tree. ‘I should think Palmer must have known more about the Park than anyone. Certainly more than my dad. Okay, we’re here.’ Filled with anticipation I thrust the door open. ‘Let’s see what’s down there.’
Joe assembled the ladder and I led the way, carrying the crowbar. The wide trapdoor came up with a creak of rusted hinges and we peered into the gloom before lowering the ladder. I said, ‘It’s quite deep. Great-grandfather must’ve had some way of getting in and out. And wouldn’t you need air down there?’
‘He’ll ’ave put a vent in someplace.’ Joe paused in the opening to examine the ruined wall before him and pointed. ‘That bit of rusty pipe there – a tenner says that’s it. And there’s prob’bly a bush ladder but I ain’t trustin’ meself to it. You wanna give us the torch?’
‘I’m coming down too.’ I clicked the switch and shone the beam into the depths for a quick look, only to feel immediate disappointment at the emptiness of the dark vault. ‘Doesn’t seem – oh, there’s something in the corner.’ Joe’s head vanished. I waited until he’d reached the bottom before climbing down after him, the torch light sketching wild circles on the ceiling. The cellar was deep; I couldn’t reach the opening from the floor. I stared, taking in the space and its earthy smell. The floor was dirt but the walls and ceiling had been roughly plastered, as had the deep aperture let into one wall, like a doorless, roomy cupboard, but my gaze was fixed on the covered object in the corner. Raising the torch, I stepped carefully across to pull the rotten hessian covering aside, only to gape at what was disclosed. ‘It’s a mirror, for heaven’s sake!’
As I stripped the covering off, my torchlight was reflected back in a dusty beam from the smeary surface of the glass. The mirror was large and square, and framed in carved timber; it looked as if it belonged on some salon wall. What it was doing in a pioneer’s cellar flummoxed me. It must have been extraordinarily difficult to get down there for starters. Its sheer size meant it could only just have fitted through the trapdoor’s generous dimensions.
‘What the hell?’ Joe said. ‘Damn funny place to keep a lookin’ glass. Cracked too. That’s seven years bad luck for somebody.’
‘It’s crazy,’ I agreed. ‘And not at all what I expected. You can’t unlock a mir— Ah!’ The torch beam steadied in its exploratory sweep around the room. Deep in the aperture in the side wall was a dusty box-like shape I had missed in my first hurried glance. I crossed quickly to it and picked it up. It wasn’t very big – about the size of a shoebox. It was made of timber and had a hinged lid and a fancy brass lock with a tiny keyhole at its centre. I blew dust from the surface. ‘This is what I was after.’ Just to be certain, I played the light around but saw only a homemade wooden ladder pegged to the wall below the trapdoor. It looked as brittle as straw, the rungs shrunken away from the slots that held them. ‘Okay, I think we can go, Joe.’
He had wandered over to squint up through a pipe end I now saw sticking down through the ceiling. ‘Not much daylight – she’s pretty near choked. You want the mirror brung up? Bit of a squeeze,’ he eyed the hole, ‘but still, somebody got ’er down ’ere.’
I shook my head. ‘Don’t bother, but if you ever think of a good reason why somebody would choose this place to stash it, be sure and let me know, won’t you?’
Back at the house I thanked Joe for his help and left him putting away the ladder and crowbar. In full daylight the box had the battered look of age, the varnish worn away on the corners and the dovetailing split on one end. It was light enough to hoist under my arm but so comprehensively grimy that it smeared my jacket. Never mind, I thought buoyantly, dust would brush off, and I would soon learn what all the fuss was about. A quick stop at the old laundry provided me with a rag to wipe it down with, then having washed my hands, I carried the box back around the house to the front door and into my bedroom, avoiding the kitchen. The contents must be very private, I reasoned, for Palmer to have gone to such lengths to conceal it.
Strange, perhaps, after having sought it so earnestly, but I hesitated before setting the box down and pulling the key from around my neck. It slid easily into the lock and, holding my breath, I turned it. There was no resistance; I heard the tiniest click and lifted the lid to survey a collection of papers, and a blue velvet jeweller’s box, as fresh as the day it was bought.
Wonderingly, I opened it. An exquisite gold ring, mounted with – could it be a ruby set in diamond chips? – met my gaze. The box’s white satin interior was as pristine as its velvet overing and it bore the name of an expensive Adelaide jeweller whose advertisements (and prices) I had seen in glossy fashion magazines. If my guess about the stones was correct, then my uncle – and I had to assume he had bought the ring, or else why was it here? – had had a woman in his life after all. I slipped it onto my finger and went to the window where sunbeams played on the lace hangings. Moving my hand in the light I admired the sparkle of the stones and the deep blood-red flash of the ruby. Rubies were the stones of love, I recalled. It was emeralds that were supposed to be unlucky. Diamonds, of course, were forever. Therefore the message of the ring was eternal love – so why had it never been given? It was a mystery but perhaps the papers would explain it. Setting the box aside I picked up a handful and began to read.
I didn’t hear the bell go for smoko. It was only when Marty came tapping on the half-open door of my room that I tore my gaze away from the ring box that I ha
d been turning unseeingly in my hand. Her words startled me back into an awareness of my surroundings and after a moment I found my voice, though it sounded strange in my own ears.
‘Sorry – what?’
‘I said, don’t you want a cuppa? The boys have been and gone. Joe told me you’d found your box. Orla,’ her tone quickening as she stepped into the room, ‘you look . . . whatever is wrong?’
‘Marty!’ Her concern undid me and my voice wobbled on her name. I swallowed incipient tears then hurled the ring box across the room. ‘It’s all lies! My whole life . . .’
Changed forever the moment I had picked up the letter, confession – whatever you wanted to call it. Penned in Palmer’s bold hand, it had my name like a salutation at the top of the first page. Orla. Below it was his devastating opening statement: I have to explain to you why and how I killed your parents . . .
I read disbelievingly, feeling the blood drain from my head, wanting to stop, each damning, incredible word a hammer blow to my senses.
At first I sought refuge in denial, as if this could protect me. It was just too shocking to be true that my uncle could cold-bloodedly execute the plan that had sent Dad careering to his death. He always drove too fast . . . Palmer had written, gloating, it seemed, over the fact that a habitual heavy-footedness should aid in his brother’s destruction. That and the mirror I’d found in the cellar fixed to reflect back to the driver his own speeding headlights. Trapped within the confines of the mulga tunnel, the calculated swerve had caused the crash and speed had done the rest. But I never intended for your mother to die too. You have to believe me. I would gladly have given my life to change that. She wasn’t meant to be in the vehicle that day.
A great swell of hatred bloomed in my heart. How dare he! How dare he kill those dearest to me then leave this smug account of their murder for me to find? If I could have spat upon his corpse just then I would have done so.
You wonder why? he had written. Call it payback. Your father was a bigamist. He dishonoured your mother and for that reason alone his end was well deserved. I goggled at the words as if I had misread them, as if the letters, differently arranged, held another message altogether. It couldn’t be true! Too numb to rebut them, I read on, my eyes racing over the lines, seeing the faces of my gracious, self-possessed mother, and Dad, with his easy laugh and smiling eyes – a bigamist? It beggared belief!
You will find the proof with these papers, the dead man’s hand had written. I loved your mother and she deserved better than the misery your father daily forced upon her. Her death ended my hope of happiness and I greatly regret the effect it had upon you. I cannot ask your forgiveness but I thought you deserved to know the truth. I have been punished for my deeds in this life and will doubtless suffer further for my sins . . .
I gaped at the paper in shock. It was completely, utterly impossible: Palmer and my mother? It couldn’t be and yet – there was the ring. But, I thought swiftly, its very presence here proved that she’d never received it. It was all in his head; it must’ve been. His stupid, murdering, vindictive head! My pulse thudded in my wrists and my breath came suddenly short. I wanted to spring to my feet and move, run, do anything to dissipate the tight, frightening tension that filled my body. Instead, a series of pictures flashed through my mind: Palmer’s face when the policewoman had broken the news to him. That look of horror had not been for his brother’s death or, as I had thought then, for the knowledge that I was now his responsibility. Marty had said he grieved. I was too young and wretched to recognise anything but my own loss at the time, but looking back I saw that it was true. And why not if he had killed the one he loved? She for whom he had purchased that ring and built his ridiculous grandiose house.
Numbly I laid the letter aside and went through the rest: a copy of an army discharge in the name of Henry McRae; a marriage certificate for Henry and Lillian McRae (nee Carp) dated September 1936, and one recording the date of their divorce in 1954. And macabrely, the receipt, from a furniture shop in Broken Hill, for a large, timber-framed wall mirror. The motive and the means for coldblooded murder all locked away in the box I had been so anxious to find.
I was still holding the receipt when Marty’s voice broke through the whispers in my brain. Palmer’s voice from his deathbed: ‘I knew you’d come, Clare.’ And my own, innocent response: ‘It’s Orla, Uncle . . .’ Only he’d neither heard nor understood me, I realised now, and when he had claimed to love me, he had of course, been speaking of, or to, my mother. His monstrous act had caused me unmeasurable pain. I wondered if, as a teenager, I’d been less lonely and unhappy, whether Mark would have ever been more than a passing blip in my young life? All that grief and heartache spared . . . I couldn’t bear to think about it.
‘Marty!’ I heard the tremble in my voice, then her arms went round me and suddenly sobs were wrenching my chest, the taste of tears bitter on my tongue. I thought I had done with them, cried them all out long ago, but I was wrong. I wept for the deceit and guilt of a man I had loved, and the horror of my uncle’s confession while some remnant of something I once read ran through my head . . . that one may smile and smile and be a villain . . . And attend church and buy fine wines and serve as a pillar of the community . . .
‘If you could just tell me.’ Marty’s plaintive voice recalled me to the room. ‘There’s nothing so bad it can’t be mended, Orla.’
‘You think?’ There was a touch of hysteria in my answer and for a moment I had the mad desire to laugh. Controlling it I cried fiercely, ‘Then read it – go on read it for yourself!’ And thrusting the letter at her I seized the first thing to hand, which was a pillow, and scrubbed angrily at the tears on my face. I rose from the bed, searched briefly along the wall where I had flung it and returned to drop the ring case beside Ellen. ‘See that? Palmer bought it for my mother. He was in love with her. I think – I think they had an affair.’
‘Orla!’ Marty sounded as shocked as a maiden aunt hearing her first oath.
I could no longer bear the sight of the box I had so diligently sought. I went to the kitchen to splash cold water on my face and stood clutching either side of the sink, dripping into it while the brass taps, polished now to a high shine, kept morphing into my father’s face. I blinked my bleary eyes and shook my head to clear it. ‘Even my name, our name,’ I said into the emptiness. My voice sounded so forlorn it frightened me. Tea was the thing for shock; tea and plenty of sugar. The kettle burbled helpfully on the stove but when I had a cup of the beverage before me I simply sat staring at it, until Marty came to join me, letter in hand.
She looked as shell-shocked as I felt.
‘I cannot believe it! Not Palmer! He was a good man —’ Her voice faded into near defeat then rallied again. ‘He was, Orla. He was kind, generous . . .’
‘And a murderer,’ I said brutally. ‘It’s there in his own hand and what’s more I’ve seen the actual instrument he used to kill them. Joe and I found the mirror in the cellar with the box. We couldn’t think what it was doing there. But of course it makes sense when you know it’s a murder weapon.’
‘But he didn’t mean your mother to die, too.’
‘Only Dad,’ I agreed. ‘Mum wasn’t supposed to go that day, but she changed her mind. So that makes it okay? If it’s just your brother you kill?’
‘No, of course not! I didn’t mean – oh, God, Orla!’ She looked appalled. ‘What will you do with this – go to the police?’
‘I hadn’t got that far. What good would it do anyway, now he’s dead?
‘I don’t know.’ As if she was a machine set to automatic, Marty removed the cooling tea and produced two fresh cups, adding milk to mine. ‘Drink it,’ she urged, ‘you need it.’ She bit her lip. ‘What possessed him to confess? He got away with it and you might say the deed carried its own punishment. I mean, he accidentally killed the woman he loved, the one he was committing the murder for.’
‘And she was what? – going to fall into his arms once the funeral was over
? He must have been insane to even think it! She and Dad . . . they were —’ My voice choked up. ‘Happy together,’ I croaked. ‘But she didn’t know she’d married a bigamist, did she? Was it Palmer’s plan to tell her that Dad hadn’t divorced his first wife? Was that supposed to make her love him?’ I had already worked out that the marriage was the reason he’d changed the spelling of his name. It made me illegitimate; I wondered why that should matter so much. One no longer became outcast for one’s birth, or at least the lack of marriage lines to accompany it, but the knowledge did make a lie of what I had believed to be the immutable facts of my existence.
I wondered what had made Palmer suspect Dad – had it been the name change? It would be why he had contacted the army, of course. He too must have heard the enlistment story that I’d been told. Because it had been Dad, I thought numbly, not some nameless sergeant, who was responsible for changing the spelling of our name. ‘One little letter, colleen, it’s neither here nor there.’ He had said that and laughed, this man whom I had loved, whom I had worshipped as little less than a god, and been proud to think of as the chief of our clan. He must have kept his first marriage very quiet but he had left home at eighteen, and not returned until the war ended. Plenty of time in which to contract a marriage and, I thought bitterly, get a divorce. Only he hadn’t, he’d met my mother instead and for whatever reason committed bigamy. And somehow (a point Palmer’s confession hadn’t covered) his half-brother had discovered the fact and used it as an excuse to destroy him.
‘I’m sorry, Orla.’ Marty sipped her tea. ‘It’s such a shock to me so I can’t imagine what you . . . Look, don’t rush into anything, will you?’
‘Like what?’
She hesitated. ‘I suppose I mean don’t broadcast what you’ve learned. To the police or anyone else. I think you should talk to Ben first. For instance if it became public knowledge how might it affect things with the tourism lot?’
Secrets of the Springs Page 11
