by Tara Moss
On the bonnet of the roadster, leading the charge as it were, was the winged goddess Victory, or Nike, her head tilted back and nestled into her wings and long, wavy hair in what Billie fancied was a pose of pleasure. The Ancient Greeks had worshipped Nike because they believed she could grant them immortality and the strength and speed to be victorious in any task, making her an appropriate ornament, to be certain, though Billie didn’t want to test the immortality theory too vigorously. No further than the dial could take them, anyway.
Sam strode forward and opened the driver’s-side door for his boss. Billie slid behind the wheel, inside the lush red interior. There was no question of her car being driven by anyone else. She pulled black leather driving gloves out of the glove box and eased them over her soft white hands as Sam got in the passenger side. He watched silently, seemingly a touch overcome by the automobile. She’d not had reason to take him out in it since his employment began.
With a grin she pumped the accelerator, pressed the starter button with her foot and the engine cranked over, she felt it fire, and the beast that was her automobile began to warm to their presence. Driving was, to Billie’s mind, something every woman should experience, and often, though such possibilities were limited until petrol rationing ceased. For now, the restrictions prevented her from enjoying her beloved car quite as much as she’d like, but being behind the wheel on the open road was the kind of rare thrill that didn’t leave one with a hangover, social embarrassment, unwanted male attachments or diseases, and who could argue with virtues such as those?
‘You’ll want to hold on tight, Sam,’ she said.
* * *
After nearly three hours of pleasant motoring, Billie pulled her roadster onto Woodlands Road, found a parking spot near Katoomba cemetery – cemeteries always being unnervingly close to hospitals – pulled off her leather driving gloves and walked towards Katoomba’s Blue Mountains District ANZAC Memorial Hospital, her seemingly unrattled passenger trailing behind her.
The drive had been in turns relaxing and thrilling, the landscape shifting as the buildings gradually slipped away, until the dense bush and the air of the mountains seemed to turn blue, the oil from eucalyptus trees mingling with dust particles and water droplets to give the region its colour and name. She and Sam had talked as much as the engine’s roar had allowed, which wasn’t much. The higher they’d driven the more the bustle of the city had fallen away, and now here in Katoomba the atmosphere was decidedly tranquil. In the gaps between the roar of motor cars on the main highway, bird calls and the deep, living quiet of nature prevailed. There was something magnificent about it, and it made Billie stop and take a deep breath.
Sam had not asked why Billie had decided to drive out to the mountains, and he did not ask why they were walking towards a hospital. Whether it was his nature or his army training, Billie did not know. But the fact that Sam trusted her judgement . . . well, it was strangely comforting. Allies like that were rare.
‘It may seem odd that we’ve come all this way,’ Billie began. ‘I did some ringing around and I think I have a lead. If not . . .’ She hesitated. ‘If I’m wrong, Sam, we deserve a drive out of the city regardless. We’ll have afternoon tea and visit the Hydro Majestic, or the Paragon,’ she said, and his eyes lit up at the suggestion.
‘I don’t feel I should be paid for that,’ he said.
‘You will be paid, regardless of what we find here. Which may be nothing. You have gone above and beyond. I don’t want you to think I don’t realise that, because I do, Sam.’
He met her eyes and said nothing. Then there was a slight nod of his head. Good. They understood each other.
They walked up the few stairs to the entry porch of the hospital, a gabled single-storey building with a central arch on which the name of the establishment was announced, then pushed through the bevelled glass doors into the cool interior. The walls inside were stretcher bond brickwork, marble memorial plaques off to one side and Roll of Life Member plaques to the other. It smelled of disinfectant and starch.
The nurse at the reception desk nodded when Billie explained their business, her face suddenly and unexpectedly opening up. ‘I spoke to you on the telephone!’ she said, her blue eyes wide. ‘That poor boy. Please come. He’s this way. Follow me.’
The nurse spoke about the boy being brought in, how no one knew who he was, how he had a head injury and was barely conscious, still unable to speak, how everyone was terribly concerned. Billie got the feeling the mystery boy had become quite a focus in the hospital. Had there really been no one else to visit him except the local constabulary to take down his description? She and Sam followed the woman into the men’s ward, where fewer than half of the beds were occupied. The nurse led them all the way to one end of the ward, where a boy lay, bandaged and bruised. The moment Billie caught sight of the curly hair sticking up between bandages, her heart leapt. Yes, this could be him. This really could.
‘He speaks sometimes,’ the nurse said, ‘but it’s mostly nonsense. He seems to have lost his memory. We haven’t been able to find out his name or where he’s from.’
‘I understand,’ Billie said.
‘Do you think this is . . . who you were hoping to find? Oh, we so hope we can find the boy’s poor family.’
At this, Billie pulled the small photograph from her pocket. She held it up next to him, feeling her stomach tighten. She pocketed the image her client had given her, then knelt next to the boy, gathering herself. His eyes were shut tight with swelling, but his hair was a giveaway.
‘Adin Brown? I’m Billie Walker,’ Billie whispered into the boy’s ear, though he did not answer. She resisted the urge to check his pulse and temperature. He was in good hands now, but where had he been? What had happened to him? Her gaze went to the raw red marks on his wrists. Rope? Still kneeling, she turned and asked the nurse, ‘Can you tell me where exactly he was found and when? How did he come in?’
‘Oh, it was a terrible thing, miss. Some hikers were coming back from one of those big walks and were headed for a train, and they saw a body at the bottom of this little cliff down at Wentworth Falls, right next to the line. They thought it was something that had fallen out of a train, at first. Then when they approached, they thought it was a dead body, but when they got there he was breathing. He was badly hurt and dehydrated, but alive. Miraculous, really. He stank of alcohol. Poor dear must have been drinking and . . .’ She trailed off. ‘He could have been hit by a train, he was that close.’
‘When was this?’
‘Yesterday morning,’ she said.
‘So he was found near the tracks. Does it seem that he possibly jumped from a train? Or had a fall?’ Billie asked.
‘Every month people come here to end their lives, you know,’ the nurse reflected, shaking her head. Billie listened with a neutral expression. ‘But usually they leave their motor car by the top, or their things. Shoes and a note, that sort of thing. He didn’t seem to have anything with him but the clothes on his back. We don’t know if he jumped or fell; he might have gone wandering after leaving a pub and slipped, poor dear. Some of those places have quite a sharp edge.’ She paused, and her next words indicated, perhaps, what she really thought. ‘And so young, too.’
Samuel had been standing silently behind Billie, and now he spoke. ‘His family will be so pleased he is alive. Thank you for what you’ve done.’
Billie wondered if she perhaps could get further. She put on her most trustworthy smile and said, ‘I think it may be who we’re looking for, but I’m not sure. Were there any personal effects on him? A wallet?’ she asked, though she was quite certain she’d found her man. She wanted to see everything.
‘No wallet, or we’d have known who he was right away,’ the nurse responded.
‘Of course.’
‘Do come this way, I’ll show you his things. I surely hope it helps. I’ve been worried sick about this lad.’
‘Thank you,’ Billie said. She looked over her shoulder at Sam,
motioning to him to stay put.
She and the nurse entered another area of the hospital, and the uniformed woman opened a locker and removed two labelled parcels wrapped in brown paper. An awful smell of liquor hit her nose as soon as they were opened. Inside one parcel was a pair of black leather men’s shoes. The other held some folded clothing, which struck Billie immediately as unusual. It looked like a formal outfit. This perhaps explained the nurse’s belief that the boy had come to die in the Blue Mountains. He had not been out hiking, that much was certain.
The nurse placed the items on a table for Billie to peruse, and she did a quick inventory. The leather shoes were fairly plain oxfords in a worn black. The label showed they were size eight, which fitted roughly with what she’d expect considering Adin’s height. They were ‘Prescription Shoes’, but that only meant they had arch support. There was no way to track a man’s name down with a pair of shoes so standard. And the clothes: a pair of good black pants, rather the worse for wear. A crumpled and stained white shirt, smelling of gin, and a cheap gin if her nose was correct. Could he really have spilled so much of it on himself? A similarly crumpled and torn dinner jacket. Billie surmised the jacket was tailor made, but not recently. It might even have been from before the war, perhaps when things were going well at the fur company. It reminded her of Mrs Brown’s suits – they were pre-war. But if it was made before the war, it wouldn’t have been made for Adin. Was this Adin’s father’s jacket? Billie wondered if Mikhall had given it to him, or if it was missing and hadn’t been noticed. She went through the garments carefully, finding no identifying labels or tags, and nothing of note until she discovered an inside coat pocket and felt something small and flat inside. It was creased and a touch thicker than paper. A photograph. She took only a moment to glance at it before secreting it so swiftly in her driving coat pocket that the nurse did not register that anything had been there at all. It was possible that whoever had inflicted the injuries on him had stripped him of his identification but missed this small item.
Billie had brought the Sydney Morning Herald clipping with her in case Adin could be interviewed, and she had fleetingly hoped to find his own torn copy in the pockets of the dinner jacket or pants, perhaps with something of note circled or written on it that explained his interest. Still, no wonder he was a no-show at the auction. At the time it was held, he was in this very hospital, semi-conscious. The photograph, whatever it was of, was the only clue among his things as to what he might have been up to, apart from the fact that whatever had happened to him had likely happened at night, given he’d been dressed for The Dancers or a similarly formal environment.
‘I’ll give a detailed description of these clothes to my client. I am hopeful,’ Billie told the nurse. ‘There was nothing else? No bottle?’
The nurse shook her head.
‘Will he recover, do you think?’ Billie asked.
‘I hope so,’ the nurse answered. ‘We don’t have a doctor on staff here, but our local doctor has come to look at him. He’ll be back to see him soon. He’s taken quite an interest.’
They walked back to the ward where Sam was waiting, watching the boy with troubled eyes.
‘Here’s the doctor now,’ the nurse said, spotting the man the same time Billie did. He was a white-coated man of about fifty with side-parted hair, a reassuringly healthy complexion considering his occupation, and a look of concern. The nurse introduced him as Dr Worthington.
‘Dr Worthington, my name is Billie Walker,’ Billie said and extended a hand. ‘A pleasure to make your acquaintance. This is my colleague, Samuel Baker,’ she said, gesturing to Sam.
The doctor looked at the patient and back to them. ‘Are you family?’ he asked.
‘We were hired by his family to find him.’
Billie was worried he might toss them out, but instead the doctor’s face brightened. ‘What a relief!’ he exclaimed. ‘So you believe you can identify this boy? We don’t think he’s a local. He’s been here for more than a day now. We informed the police when he was found but they’ve come up with nothing. He was in an awful state . . .’
‘I see you have given him good care. In your opinion, will he recover, doctor? I mean his memory, and his injuries?’
‘The prognosis is good, but things will take some time. He’s been through an ordeal, the poor boy. He shouldn’t be moved until he is more fully recovered, then he can perhaps be transferred to a bigger hospital. He has a back injury, which will improve with rehabilitation. And there is a strong chance his memory will come back fully, though I can’t be sure.’
Billie thanked the doctor and she and Sam made their way out of the ward. She appeared serene but beneath her rayon dress her heart was pounding. The photograph. It was about the size of the empty frame back at the fur shop, Billie thought. How interesting. And those wrists. Those raw red wrists. Adin Brown had not had an easy time of things since he left the family house. No, Adin had not done this to himself. There was a lot she didn’t yet understand about the boy and this case, but attempted suicide was not the missing piece of the puzzle. He wasn’t some drunk youth out wandering alone, either. However Adin had ended up here, he was alive. He was alive, and there was a chance he would talk again.
Billie, for one, was deeply interested in what the young man would have to say.
Chapter Twenty-One
‘Are you sure it’s him?’ Nettie Brown asked down the crackling telephone line. ‘Are you really sure?’
Billie took a moment to answer her client. She was sure, the little woman in her gut was sure, and that curly hair was uncannily like that in the photograph, but it was best to exercise caution when it came to something like this. ‘I am very confident it is your son, Mrs Brown,’ she replied, ‘but I can’t positively confirm it. Only you or your husband can do that. The boy fits Adin’s description, but the timing of his being taken to the hospital is right only if he spent some days elsewhere before being found.’
‘Elsewhere?’
‘That’s correct,’ Billie said, and did not elaborate. She looked around the nurses’ station. The staff were giving her space, but the nurse who had helped her caught her eye, her blue eyes shining with hope. Billie gave her a smile and a nod, and cradled the receiver close to her ear again.
‘But where?’ Mrs Brown pressed, and Billie did not answer.
‘He’s in and out in terms of his memory, the doctor says. Try not to be too upset if he does not recognise you right away,’ she told her client in a low voice. ‘He’s been through a lot, I suspect. A concussion, some abrasions and cuts and a back injury, though the doctor thinks he will recover in time. But he can’t be moved, Mrs Brown. Not yet.’
There were no words now, the line crackling.
Then Billie detected a wet, indecipherable sound. Her client was sobbing, she realised, and a part of Billie went to pieces at the sound of the dignified and reserved woman’s raw emotion. When she’d recovered herself, Mrs Brown vowed to leave work immediately and drive up to identify her son at the hospital. Billie had allowed room for some doubt as to the boy’s identity, but she felt very confident indeed that they had their young man. This was a great outcome, as long as he recovered from his ordeal.
‘Just one thing, Mrs Brown,’ Billie added, cupping her hand around the mouthpiece and speaking in a low voice. ‘I want you to listen to me carefully. Perhaps you should consider keeping fairly quiet about Adin’s identity and condition, until we know what happened to him.’
There was a pause. ‘What do you mean? The case is closed, isn’t it? You found him.’
‘I believe so. But what we don’t know is—’
‘I want the case closed if you found him. That is final.’
Billie had thought this might happen. ‘I understand. I’m off the clock now, Mrs Brown, if that is what you want,’ she reassured her. The Browns didn’t want any surprise expenses, she appreciated that. Her fee would be forty pounds, representing four days’ work, but she suspected the Browns wer
e barely holding on financially. ‘Unless you want more from me or the courts come calling, my work is finished. I’m confident I have found your son, but if you find otherwise I want you to let me know. However, I dare say there may be a criminal element at work here, and the police could be interested once your son is able to recall what happened to him. For the moment, at least, I would advise that you reveal his condition and location to only those who absolutely must know,’ she warned.
‘But we’ve been so worried. Everyone knows we are looking for him . . .’
‘I recognise that, Mrs Brown. Nonetheless, that is my advice.’
Again, the line was quiet. Billie waited patiently. This turn of events would be a lot for Mrs Brown, or any person, to absorb. ‘You think he is in danger of some kind, don’t you?’
Billie believed that was possible, but she didn’t want to alarm the woman needlessly. ‘Can I wait for you here?’ she responded cautiously.
‘Thank you, there is no need.’
‘Are you certain, Mrs Brown? It’s no problem for us to stay here for a few more hours. It would be good to see—’
‘My husband and I will be there soon. Thank you for finding our son. We are very grateful, but your work is done now.’ Mrs Brown’s tone was firm. ‘We just want our son back.’
