The Unfortunate Victim

by Greg Pyers

  He swept his eyes along the footpath, but she was gone.

  ALICE LATHAM WAS AT the counter when her daughter Maggie entered Mills’ store. The women each caught the other’s eye and smiled, as in the manner of acquaintances, though there was longing in the older one’s gaze. Her lower lip was swollen and split.

  ‘Hello, Maggie,’ she said. Her tone was tentative, as if in expectation of a snub. ‘I were thinkin’, if it’s all right, that maybe you an’ George might like to come over Saturday afternoon for tea? Seein’ as it’ll be Christmas Eve. The girls would love to see you; they’ve hardly seen you at all these past weeks.’

  She waited, hopeful.

  ‘Thank you, ma, but George will be out.’

  ‘Oh —’

  ‘Will that be all for now, Mrs Latham?’ the shop assistant said.

  Alice nodded a thank-you and paid. She continued as she loaded her basket from the counter.

  ‘You could always come on your own. And you do know I wouldn’t ask unless Joe were going to be out.’

  The assistant had turned his attention to Maggie. She took the opportunity this afforded and avoided the question.

  ‘Four pound of flour, a half-pound of sugar, a half-pound of butter, a pound of dried apples, and four candles, thank you,’ she said. ‘And soap. I need soap. Though not quite as much as my husband does!’

  She chuckled along with the man serving, as much to distract herself from all the awkwardness.

  Alice was regarding her daughter. ‘It does warm my heart to see you happy, Maggie,’ she said. She waited, and walked with Maggie back out to the street, where they stood, the two still figures on a busy boardwalk. Alice placed a hand on Maggie’s arm, and had to wait till the clanging bell of the town crier and his bawling of some notice passed them by.

  ‘Please, love,’ she said. ‘For Christmas.’

  Maggie looked at her mother. The fat lip was no surprise, and Maggie felt no longer obliged to enquire as to how she came by it, or of any other bruisings she might bear on any particular day.

  ‘My husband comes first, ma. You taught me that.’

  Alice stiffened. ‘And rightly so, if you want a roof over your head, and food for your children.’

  And to be safe, Maggie thought to say, but she knew the words would be lost on her mother.

  ‘I gave you my consent,’ Alice said, in the exasperated tone of it having been said a hundred times. ‘So’s you would be happy. You know that.’ She squeezed Maggie’s arm and offered a kindly face. Maggie’s was impassive. She felt sorry for her mother, blinded by fear and wifely obligation to Joe Latham. So help me, Maggie Latham, I swear I will cut your very throat if you defy me. That’s what he’d said, her own stepfather, not two months past. And this was no idle threat uttered in a moment of lapse. He’d bided his time, till they were alone in the house, and the menace was all the greater with a blade in his hand. Ma saw the evidence of his violence; in the bruises and welts, in the tears and frightened face of her daughter, but it was for the violence that left its stain on Maggie’s sheets — but could never be spoken of — that Alice gave her consent for her daughter to wed.

  4

  FRIDAY 23rd DECEMBER

  FIVE DAYS BEFORE THE MURDER

  A ZEPHYR WAS ENOUGH to quiver the front door in its housing, and a knuckle-rap to shake it, but late at night the quick agitation of the handle would make the distinctive rat-a-tat by which Maggie would recognise her husband’s hand. She would slip out of bed, and, with the candlelight from the front room, skip through to let him in. When Louisa Goulding came over, she never knocked; the timber was too hard and coarse for eight-year-old hands. Rather, she would call, ‘Maggie!’ like the trill of a tiny bird.

  She visited early that afternoon, just as George Stuart was leaving. To Louisa, George was no more than the man Maggie lived with, just as she lived with her uncle William Rothery and aunt Emma. Maggie was young and soft and pretty; George was like uncle Rothery; old and whiskery and lined, with chipped fingernails and hands callused and thick. George even seemed old enough to be Maggie’s father, though Louisa did know that, like her own father, he’d passed away long ago, before Maggie even knew how to walk.

  George nodded a greeting to the girl, and pulled the door shut behind him.

  ‘Maggie won’t be long. Just tidying up,’ he said with a quick smile and a touch of her cheek as he walked away. At the brow of the hill, he looked back, catching Louisa watching him. Quickly, she turned. When she looked back, he’d gone.

  PEARSON THOMPSON ENTERED THE small reception area of the London Portrait Gallery to a tinkling of a bell and a cheery call from a room beyond.

  ‘Be with you in a moment.’

  He removed his top hat and patted down the slicks of grey either side of his bare pate to the genial pitch of a happily married husband and wife in conversation. The wall before him was squared with framed photographs; portraits in the main, with a few street and rural scenes. He nodded to himself that he was in the hands of a skilled practitioner.

  Footsteps sounded.

  ‘Mr Thompson?’

  The customer swivelled on his polished shoes to see a man wearing the smile of one who was content in his work and life.

  ‘Ah, Chuck. Good afternoon.’ They shook hands. Thomas Chuck stepped back, and looked his client up and down.

  ‘If you will allow me, Sir, that is a beautiful silk jacket. London?’

  ‘Every stitch.’

  ‘And the cravat the perfect complement.’

  Thompson shifted on his feet. Chuck took the hint.

  ‘Well, Sir, I think we should begin.’

  ‘Splendid.’

  Chuck ushered his client through into the adjoining small room bright with light from an overhead window. Against the far wall was a padded leather chair by a small round table, upon which a woman was placing a vase of blooms.

  ‘May I introduce my wife, Adeline. Adeline, this is Mr Pearson Thompson, the barrister.’

  Thompson bowed his head. Mrs Chuck nodded a how-do-you-do and excused herself while her husband moved to the large brown camera that sat atop a tripod some ten feet from the parlour-room set.

  ‘Please,’ he said, pointing to a long mirror on a stand in the corner. ‘Should you wish to make sure all is as it should be.’

  Thompson took the opportunity provided, mainly to check with angled glances that his hair was shown to best advantage. Also, that his sideburns were well primped, and with a quick comb ensured that the luxuriant moustache which linked them was straight and symmetrical. So satisfied, he settled himself on the chair, though uncertain as to what to do with his top hat.

  Chuck relieved him of his indecision.

  ‘I think it best to leave your hat off; it will cast a shadow. But please, why not place it on the table; it is such a handsome hat, after all, and ought to be in the picture.’

  Thompson took the advice, and watched as Chuck stooped and disappeared beneath his blackout hood. From a fold, a hand reached around to adjust the brass lens that fixed Thompson in its black stare. Chuck reappeared and placed a cap over the unsettling aperture.

  ‘All in focus. I just have to prepare the plate, so if you’ll please bear with me a few moments …’

  He smiled and retreated through a door he shut behind him. ‘Dark Room. Please Do Not Enter’ was painted across it in cursive letters, the florid style strikingly at variance with the authority intended.

  Pearson Thompson sat still. The room was rather too warm — his unseasonal portrait attire notwithstanding — and sweat beaded on his scalp. He mopped it away, and considered that at this very moment mild summers were what he missed most about England. Then again in winter, when Vincent Street was a quagmire and its buildings were rendered all the flimsier for the fog, it would be the grand, sweeping façade of his beloved Lansdown Crescent in the
family seat at Cheltenham that had him pining. This portrait was something he’d been looking forward to; court victories are forgotten soon enough, buildings crumble, but a photograph is for the ages.

  The dark room door opened, and he watched Chuck return, clutching a wooden box the dimensions of a folded backgammon board. In his wake came a strong and not altogether disagreeable waft of ether. Thompson watched him lift the blackout hood, open the back of the camera, and insert this box. From another part of the camera’s back he pulled out a black screen.

  ‘And now for the exposure,’ the photographer said, his hand ready to remove the lens cap. ‘Still as you can, Sir. Ten seconds ought to do it. Ready? On the count of three …’

  THE GROUND IMMEDIATELY WEST of the Stuarts’ was not long cleared, and the detritus of the original forest was still plentiful enough to provide fuel for stoves and open fires. And so it was for sticks and broken roots that Maggie and Louisa ventured into this untidy terrain.

  The sun was high and benign in this early day of summer. A breeze was gentle and cooling, flowers nodded, and insects clicked and buzzed into the air. Seemingly involuntarily, Louisa skipped with the joy of being there with her friend on such a day, but promptly tripped on a root and fell with a squeal. Maggie rushed over to find Louisa turned on her back and laughing.

  ‘Oh Louisa, you are silly!’ Maggie said, then pretended a trip of her own to lie with her, laughing and beaming with the pleasure of being silly together on a beautiful day.

  ‘What will your aunt say if you break a leg?’ Maggie said.

  ‘Or much worse, tear my dress!’

  They giggled some more, neither wanting to get up just yet.

  Maggie thrust a finger skyward.

  ‘Eagle,’ she said.

  They watched the bird bank and soar, letting it be the reason to be silent and in their contemplation to enjoy togetherness all the more.

  Louisa was suddenly to her feet, squealing and stomping, and slapping at her dress.

  ‘Ants! Ow! Maggie!’

  Maggie was up, searching across Louisa’s clothing and then to the ground, where an angry swarm was flowing.

  ‘Have you been stung?’ she said.

  ‘Yes! Oh Maggie, look how many there are!’

  ‘Well, come away from there!’

  Maggie took Louisa by the hand and hurried her away.

  ‘We can gather wood another day.’

  ‘No. I’ll be all right.’

  They hugged, and when Louisa was quite sure she was ant-free, began their collecting.

  Soon, their meanderings took them near the tent that had been there for some days. Maggie had seen the man who resided in it on a few occasions. He was there now, twenty yards distant, seated on a stump by his fire.

  He stood.

  ‘Good day,’ he said.

  Maggie smiled. She looked for Louisa and saw her sitting astride a log, arranging a posy of wildflowers. Maggie’s bundle was large enough now. She took the first step towards home.

  ‘You’re a nice-looking girl,’ the man said.

  Maggie turned just far enough to make a small smile, to acknowledge a compliment.

  ‘You live over there?’ he said.

  Maggie nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s a pity you’ve not a sweetheart,’ he said.

  She faced him fully now.

  ‘I’m a married woman.’ She glanced at Louisa, and was all the gladder for her being there. But the man seemed unaffected by the bluntness. He even smiled, and added as he sat down, ‘Oh, ’cause I’d like to marry you myself.’

  Maggie nodded and turned away to leave for home.

  ‘Who’s that girl?’

  ‘Louisa, she lives next door to me. I have to go now.’

  ‘You have a good husband?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where does he work?’

  ‘At the Wombat mine. I expect he’ll be home soon.’

  ‘Best I not be asking more questions then, else I get my nose broke!’

  5

  SATURDAY, CHRISTMAS EVE

  FOUR DAYS BEFORE THE MURDER

  ONE STOMP OF A boot crushed the skull to splinters, and so was eliminated the last identifiable remains of dog. David Rose scraped the skeleton’s disjointed, naked bones into an anonymous jumble among the ash, and sat on his stump to load a pipe. He felt easy, though he’d found no work yesterday, and had no particular drive to look for any today. What he did have was a belly full from another free counter lunch. Dinner had been secured, too. He hadn’t quite managed to talk a forequarter of mutton out of the butcher in Albert Street, but a story of hardship and an appeal to old Gelliner’s Christian charity had netted him three sausages. No, he’d decided, with tomorrow being Christmas Day, the Wombat Park Boxing Day picnic everyone talked about would be the place and time to find work. He’d be sure to get a good feed there, too, most like. Till then, he’d rest up, keep his own company. Maybe even wash some shirts, if the mood took him.

  He sucked on the mouthpiece and drew the smoke deep. He closed his eyes and raised his face to the afternoon sun, its kick mitigated by thin eucalypt foliage nodding in a benevolent breeze. A magpie warbled there, and distant voices drifted in and out on the shifting air. He opened his eyes and beheld the world at his feet: men toiling at the Trafalgar Mine way below, a woman hanging a sheet, a horse turning a Chilean mill. And here he was, David Rose, the burglar from Blakeney, thirty-four years of age, fed, feet up on his stump and smoking a pipe, would you believe! He had such sweet moments from time to time, and was very glad of them, for they reminded him of his good fortune, scant though it was. But he was a free man, with a full belly, and tobacco in his pipe. What else could he want? He looked across the hill to the cottage. She was there, in the yard, singing while she washed clothes in a bucket. He emptied his pipe, stood, and walked towards her.

  IN THE CHANGING SHADOWS one hundred and fifty feet below, a man had to mind his head walking along the tunnel to reach the head of the lead.

  ‘No place for the tall man, George,’ Aitken observed from ahead as he ducked beneath an irregularity of basalt in the ceiling. ‘None for the short either,’ he added with a chuckle once the constriction had been negotiated.

  ‘Or the fat,’ George added, for want of something else. He preferred to say little — he found reverberations of voice and sloshing water through flickering light and dark disorientating.

  ‘No, they’re all at Bleackley’s, getting drunk on the profits of our hard graft.’

  George let the remark pass. He’d heard it all before from Aitken: the resentment, the jealousy. It was childish; there was no law that said he had to be down here, no gun at his head.

  They’d reached the lead, the compressed remains of an ancient river where gold lay for the taking. They fixed their lamps to the shoring.

  ‘You must feel like a pig in shit, married,’ Aitken said.

  George Stuart grasped a boring rod, ready to hold up for his mate to drive it into the seam with a hammer blow.

  ‘To her, I mean, a bloke like you. I mean, she’s a very good-looking woman, your wife, and young. She could be the wife of a gentleman. Instead, she’s with you. I don’t mean no offence by that, understand, George. I’m just saying, that’s all. I mean, good luck to you.’

  MAGGIE WIPED DOWN THE table with a damp rag. With the afternoon light reaching across it from the window, she could see she’d done a good job. She smiled at her work, because she loved keeping house, and it very much pleased her to please her husband. And tomorrow was Christmas Day, and they would be hosting two of George’s workmates for tea and scones. Later, Mr and Mrs Homberg from the Argus would be their dinner guests. Nothing fancy — sausages and salad, and pleasant conversation with her favourite former employer. This was how she had hoped married life would be, and the anticipation of a love
ly day was a joy to savour. But for now there was washing to be done.

  Bless George, she thought, filling the butt for her earlier in the day — this was no easy job, loading two buckets at a time and walking a hundred yards to and back from the shaft. Now, as a dutiful wife, she would carry out her side of the enterprise. She filled her wash bucket and, with soap in hand, sat on the threshold and worked up a lather. First in was George’s shirt. She squeezed and rubbed, and in the shade of the doorway began to sing softly to herself.

  Maggie wasn’t aware that she was being watched, and when she saw that she was, knew that the man from the tent hadn’t just arrived there on the road frontage. His stance was too square, his carriage too settled, to have been just walking by. No, he’d been there a minute or more, she was sure of it. She stood in the open doorway, with a wet petticoat dripping from her hand.

  ‘You live here?’ he said.

  Maggie nodded.

  He seemed unsure of himself, holding his large hat over his waist and rotating it by the brim. Maggie stooped to collect her bucket.

  He stepped forward a few paces, ostensibly to let a dray go by. He pointed. ‘I’ll be camping across there … till the Christmas holidays are over.’

  Maggie’s fingers flexed around the bucket handle. She stepped back, and felt for the door.

  ‘Well, good evening to you, Missus,’ the man said.

  ‘Good evening,’ Maggie said.

  She nodded, closed the door, and locked it.

  CANDLE-HOLDERS, ASH PANS, AND household containers from tea caddies to flour bins were typical of the assortment of items manufactured, and repaired, by Cockney tinsmith Joe Latham in the shed at the rear of his residence in Bridport Street. In all practical regards this address was an undeniable improvement on his last, the tiny cottage he’d built in Albert Street for his family and business. In fact, with one child from his wife’s first marriage and eight since, the move was a necessity. Though he had been the builder, in Latham’s head there was no fond nostalgia for the old place, no dreamy musing or cherished memories of humbler beginnings. There was only a deep loathing, such as he might have for a lover who’d wronged him. The simple two-roomed wooden abode, with its makeshift chimney, rough-hewn weatherboards and shingles, one door, two windows, all put together by his own hand, had become for Joe Latham a monument to betrayal, for now it was the place where Maggie and George Stuart lived.