The War Widow

by Tara Moss

  Billie watched the detective inspector’s reaction. His eyes were hazel like Jack’s, she realised, but paler. She’d seen those eyes soften the morning she’d woken up with a body in her bedroom, but he was all business now. She recognised a brick wall as well as Lillian could.

  ‘I understand there were shots fired at the hospital,’ he continued.

  ‘Shots fired at us and anyone else trying to intervene with the would-be killers’ plans, yes. Naturally we had to defend ourselves.’

  ‘Witnesses say your . . . secretary is he? He fired.’

  Billie nodded. ‘As I said, we had to defend ourselves, and protect others. The shots were fired outside the hospital, however, and no one was hit, as far as I am aware.’

  ‘Indeed. And tell me, why did you follow after them when they left the hospital grounds?’

  Ah, this had been a sticking point for the constable in the mountains as well. Why did she pursue a couple of would-be killers?

  ‘I had some questions for them,’ Billie said, knowing full well that self-defence was hard to argue once the assailants were fleeing. ‘And they might have returned to finish the job.’ She wanted to know who they were, and the police hadn’t furnished her with that information yet. The only clue she had was that they were associates of Moretti, who was next on her list of people to visit. ‘They had tried to kill the boy, the boy my client paid me to locate, a badly injured kid, so I took the matter rather seriously.’

  The inspector contemplated her, his eyes steely beneath lashes the colour of tall summer hay. It was a gaze she met calmly. He broke away first. ‘You have a licence for your side arm, I presume?’

  ‘I do. It is rather standard for most in my profession. Self-defence is sometimes necessary, though of course that did not play into the tragic events at Victoria Pass yesterday. My side arm remains unfired.’

  There was a long pause. ‘We are waiting on the coroner’s report.’

  ‘Of course. They were definitely the same two men, Inspector, thugs for hire, that type, who attacked me and Mr Baker on Sunday afternoon, and they had two other companions on that occasion. I believe they were working for Vincenzo Moretti, the private inquiry agent. You may remember him. He was sitting in a Vauxhall outside my flat on Sunday morning.’

  ‘Moretti? Why do you say that?’

  ‘Well, because I made one of them tell me,’ she explained. ‘I can be persuasive when required.’

  Now his eyes widened a touch. He did not ask how she had made the man tell her, though he looked awfully intrigued.

  ‘I looked into this Moretti character.’

  Now it was Billie’s turn to be surprised. ‘Do go on.’

  He flipped through a few pages of a notepad and landed on what he was looking for. ‘The Morettis fled Italy following the Milan bread riots of 1898, settled in Sydney. Vincenzo Moretti, born in July 1900, now aged forty-six, works as a private inquiry agent. He has prior arrests, most notably for an attempt to bribe a witness for the purpose of suppressing evidence. Let’s see . . .’ He trailed off for a moment, turning a page. ‘Ah, yes. He was further charged with attempting to pervert the due course of justice by unlawfully conspiring to dissuade a witness from giving true testimony, for which he did a short stint behind bars. The officer whom he attempted to bribe, and who brought the case to court has a familiar last name – Walker. Detective Barry Walker, since resigned.’

  ‘And regretfully deceased,’ Billie added, though her voice was smaller than intended, the words shrinking in her throat.

  ‘My condolences, Ms Walker.’ He looked at her with those hazel eyes, impenetrable but sympathetic. ‘This man was outside your flat on Sunday, as you pointed out. Does he do that often?’

  ‘Not that I’m aware of,’ Billie said, and swallowed. Had he been the one in her room as she slept?

  ‘Now two men who may have been colleagues of Mr Moretti have ended up at the bottom of a cliff.’

  ‘That appears to be the case, yes.’ She shifted in the hard wooden chair. ‘You’ll note I reported the incident immediately,’ she added. ‘I didn’t think they had much chance, careening off the road like that, but we called for an ambulance. They were shooting out of their car at us. Did the Katoomba police tell you that? These men were quite reckless.’

  Silence crept between them, and Billie considered her father and his history with Moretti. She’d known Moretti hated him for something, something personal. So Moretti was convicted of trying to bribe an officer of the law? That figured.

  The inspector appeared to make a decision. ‘I want you to show me exactly what happened,’ he said.

  ‘Am I of interest?’ He did not seem about to arrest her, but it was worth asking.

  ‘Not at this stage,’ he replied, poker faced.

  ‘Well then, I guess we can still be friends,’ she said with a smile, eliciting a twitch of the lips from the inspector. There was a long pause, during which his eyes softened again, just a touch.

  Billie stood up, smoothing down her skirt. ‘Shall we take a drive, then?’ she suggested. ‘I have my roadster parked only a couple of blocks away. She’s a fine automobile. I can take you with me.’

  ‘No need, Ms Walker. There is a police automobile available,’ he said. He came around to the door to let her out.

  ‘I’ll meet you at Victoria Pass, then?’ She resisted daring him to a race to get there first.

  ‘Your secretary, Mr Baker, was also a witness,’ he noted. ‘He is available?’

  Her heart sank a touch. ‘You need us both? Surely not. I’ll have to close the office if no one is there to man the desk. And the police do have his statement.’ Today was not a day to leave the telephones unanswered, considering the free publicity the newspapers had provided.

  ‘Very well.’ The inspector looked at his wrist watch. It was old but handsomely designed, with rectangular gold detail on a worn leather strap. ‘I’ll meet you at the spot where you pull off just after the pass, if you don’t want a lift. Will two o’clock suit?’ he asked.

  Two o’clock. That gave them just over three and a half hours to drive there, she calculated. ‘Oh yes. I’d prefer to drive myself, thank you. That is if I’m not under arrest. And that should give me time for a spot of tea first,’ she replied a little naughtily.

  He did a double take as he collected his jacket. ‘Just don’t run anyone off the road this time,’ he advised, and she flashed him a grin in return, fairly sure she’d heard him make his first joke.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  ‘Ms Walker, a note arrived for you while you were out,’ the lift operator, John Wilson, said.

  Billie was on her way back down to the street level of Daking House, having instructed Sam to hold the fort and take messages, when she was handed an envelope. She took it from Wilson, and turned it over in her hands. The plain envelope had her name on it in familiar bold letters, no address or stamp, and it didn’t feel like there was much inside. She slit it open with her nail and read the slip of paper that confirmed the identity of her correspondent. There were only seven words:

  I GOT A JOB IN THE HOUSE

  Billie paled. Shyla. ‘When did this arrive?’

  ‘Just a minute ago. I was on my way up to give it to you when you ordered the lift,’ Wilson told her.

  ‘I have to catch her,’ Billie said, and when the cab arrived on the ground level she sprinted out, forgetting her usual thank you. She burst out of the front door of Daking House and stood on the footpath of Rawson Place looking to her left and right. Traffic filled the streets around Central Station, with plenty of pedestrians on the footpaths. Which way would Shyla have gone? A dark-haired woman in a dark coat was walking across the road towards Central, visible in a parting of taller pedestrians, and Billie ran after her, weaving through the crowd and grabbing the woman’s shoulder. She turned. The brown-eyed woman gave Billie a shocked frown, shook off her hand and walked on.

  ‘Sorry . . .’ Billie began, but the stranger was already gone.


  A tram passed and a boy of no more than fifteen wolf-whistled at her. Billie heard it in the distance, as if it were happening in another, parallel dimension. Dammit Shyla, she thought. If that man, Frank, was detaining or harming the girls in some way, Shyla could be putting herself in serious danger. Billie still didn’t have an address, but a big homestead in Upper Colo near an orchard couldn’t be too hard to find if she could spot that distinctive Packard, and now she had the number plate too. That was assuming the automobile was parked in the open, or the man wasn’t off transporting whatever things he left the homestead to deliver. Blast. She’d have to get out there and see what was going on, and soon. But she wanted to hear first from Constable Primrose with details: a full name, an address, a record of some kind. When had ‘Frank’ arrived in the country? Was he known to police?

  She wondered when Shyla’s job would be starting; did she have a few days up her sleeve? She wanted, too, to pay a visit to Moretti. She wanted to be sure Adin Brown was okay. She wanted to speak to his parents again. There was much she wanted, but for now she had a detective inspector to satisfy.

  Her heart slowing to a normal pace, Billie walked towards her motor car, uncurling tense fists that had left the faint crescents of fingernail marks in her palms. The roadster was parked by Station House like a waiting steed, and putting the top down and climbing in allowed Billie’s shoulders to drop a touch. The vehicle was still a bit dirty and roughed up from the previous day, but it seemed not to diminish her glory. Here Billie was in the driver’s seat of something she could control. It had been an eventful few days, and now she was increasingly worried about Adin’s immediate safety and Shyla’s as well. She needed to clear her mind to get it to function at its best, and for Billie driving at high speed was just the tonic. She placed her handbag on the passenger seat, pulled on her leather driving gloves and patted the dashboard as if the machine were a large and beloved mare of great power and elegance. The engine warmed admirably, and as she waited for the right moment to pull out into the traffic she considered Sam’s response to the news that she would be driving back up the mountain. He’d initially looked disappointed not to be going with her, but had covered that up commendably. The telephone had been ringing – thanks to the press – and she needed him in the office. Steady Sam. Unquestioning Sam. She might not have made it through the weekend without him.

  Engine warm and ready, Billie pulled smoothly away from the kerb and was immediately pleased to detect that the previous day’s incident had done nothing whatsoever to sour her desire for the road. This was to be her second trip to the Blue Mountains in as many days, and at this rate she’d run out of petrol coupons mid-month, but no matter. The proximity of death taught you that you only had this moment. Only now. She wasn’t going to sit in any cop’s car when she could be at the wheel.

  The speedometer needle moved higher in its round dial; the wind pushed harder. The exquisite freedom of the road had not been lost to her, and though unaware of it, Billie’s red lips wore a soft smile, mirroring that of winged Victory just feet ahead of her on the roadster’s purring bonnet.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Detective Inspector Hank Cooper from Sydney’s Central Police and Private Inquiry Agent Billie Walker were both somewhat outside their usual jurisdictions as they stood on the edge of Victoria Pass in the Blue Mountains, the afternoon wind tugging at their hair and clothing. A roped-off area of broken timber railing marked where the Oldsmobile had forged a deadly path to the final resting place of two men on unforgiving rocks hundreds of feet below.

  ‘This was an “unfortunate accident”,’ the detective inspector commented after a long silence, peering over the edge and quoting Billie from the police report. ‘Is that what I am to believe?’

  ‘Well, one can hardly call it fortunate,’ Billie noted.

  They stood several feet away from the path of destruction, and though all was quiet now save for the rustling of summer wind through the bush and up the steep embankment, and the intermittent roar of the occasional passing vehicle, the aftermath of the plummeting motor car had left a kind of psychic path that could still be felt. Billie thought she could almost hear the sickening sound of the splintering rail and the crash far below.

  ‘One can’t help the bad driving of others,’ she added, wrapping her dark navy driving coat around her, wind whipping the hem. ‘Locals die on this bend every year, I’m told, and I suspect the driver did not know these roads as a local would.’ She paused. ‘I slowed. They did not.’

  ‘You have an answer for everything, don’t you?’ Cooper said, turning to her and holding on to his hat.

  ‘Do I?’ She had theories but she didn’t have a sure answer for why those men had wanted Adin Brown’s silence, or who had sent them to ensure it. Moretti? And who was he working for exactly? Was this part of a grudge against her dad and by extension her? That seemed a stretch after so many years. No, she didn’t have all the answers. Billie didn’t have a sure answer for why she’d been pummelled in an alley or why Con Zervos was dead and had been planted in her bedroom. Theories were forming, a cast of characters assembling, clues knitting together – but answers? No.

  The inspector asked her to describe once again the chain of events, the path of the cars. She complied patiently, shouting from time to time when the wind came up.

  Cooper heard her out, took some notes and without a word led her back down the road, away from the pass with its spectacular view of the Megalong Valley on one side and Hartley Valley on the other, towards where they’d left their motor cars. Unless they wished to abseil down to the fatal collection of rocks, they could not get closer to the mangled hunk of metal from which two bodies had been extracted and which a crane would soon remove from the otherwise picturesque landscape.

  ‘It was unwise to pursue them,’ the inspector said once they reached their vehicles.

  ‘I don’t plan to make a habit of it, Detective Inspector,’ Billie replied, leaning against the roadster’s driver’s-side door, and wondering fleetingly if she’d have been called unwise or heroic if she’d been her father. ‘I do wish, though, we could firmly establish who hired them, and their reasons.’

  ‘I’ll look into it,’ he said.

  ‘Will you?’ she asked, watching him. ‘You have to admit it’s quite a coincidence that Moretti was outside my flat on Sunday and those thugs, who said they worked for him, attacked Adin Brown the next day.’

  ‘Yes. It is interesting,’ he said cautiously.

  They would head to the hospital next, and Billie hoped that Adin was recovering well and would have something to say, if not his entire memory restored. She felt the inspector knew more than she did about the whole affair, including, probably, the identities of the dead men. But just what that was remained to be seen.

  * * *

  Billie’s arrival at Katoomba Hospital with the tall inspector did not go unnoticed by patients and staff.

  As they made their way towards the arched sandstone entrance, Billie noticed a flurry of activity behind the windows on either side. The nurse from the previous day was once again at the front admissions desk, even more wide-eyed and happy to assist, and nearby Billie spotted a copy of the day’s newspaper. It appeared to have been hastily put to one side, as if to give the impression that the incident and its coverage had somehow not been a major topic of conversation. Uniformed staff watched them move through the halls, turning and whispering, leaving a buzz of low voices in their wake as they headed to an area Billie was unfamiliar with. To her relief, they had moved Adin Brown out of the men’s ward to a private room west of the main entrance, usually reserved for quarantine cases. He also now had a police guard, she noted. The local constable from the previous day – he of the circular questions and outdoorsman glow – was sitting outside the private room, looking catastrophically bored, and it was with some pleasure that Billie watched him register her approach, then stand and put on an air of officiousness, only to have Cooper flash a badge and put him
back in his place several ranks below.

  ‘Detective Inspector Cooper, Central Police. Ms Walker is assisting with our inquiries,’ the inspector said. The constable’s goldfish-like gaping stretched on for a moment and then ceased, his athletic complexion paling. The nurse opened the door into the room and Billie gave him a saccharine smile as she moved inside, Detective Inspector Cooper shutting the door behind them for privacy.

  They found themselves in a modest room with a single bed and a barred window that afforded some natural light. It smelled of bleach and some kind of disinfectant they’d presumably used on the boy’s wounds. Adin was propped up, which was encouraging, but when he turned to look in her direction Billie was shocked by the swollen appearance of his eyes. He had been beaten around the head with some enthusiasm, that much was evident, and it now made a great deal of sense that he was having difficulty with recollection. His parents were with him, his father holding his hand tenderly. With the inspector and Billie inside the room, there wasn’t a lot of space. A vase with some bright cerise bougainvillea added some cheer to a setting that might have been sombre, except for the palpable relief felt by Mikhall and Nettie Brown.

  ‘Oh Billie!’ Nettie exclaimed, leaping up and embracing her, all reserve and formality having fallen away. ‘Thank you for finding our boy, our dear, dear boy.’ Fresh tears were running down her face and so fierce was her embrace that Billie felt she might injure a rib, or perhaps she was still bruised and tender from the alley attack. Trapped for a moment in the woman’s arms, Billie exchanged a look with the inspector, who was observing the emotional scene without comment. Now her client – her former client – was not concerned about what it had cost to find her son. Now that she had her boy back, it seemed she felt only pure relief.