Beyond the Horizon

by Peter Watt

  These letters were about Giselle’s only contact with news beyond station life. Newspapers that arrived were often a couple of weeks old, and Giselle had little interest in reading the latest war news – the pain of losing Alex was still too great. There were nights that she would hug herself in the privacy of her room and sob for the loss of her beloved husband. Oh, how she missed the feel of his strong arms around her and the smell of his skin lingering between them after they had made love. That she was not the only young wife missing her husband was a fact of war, though, and she guessed that there were nights when the tears of women – wives, mothers, sisters and lovers – could have filled an ocean.

  Giselle savoured the moment when she could sit alone on the verandah after all the day’s work had been done and read the letters under the yellow light of a kerosene lantern. She looked forward to the tidbits of gossip from Louise Macintosh, her sister-in-law in Sydney. It was rare to receive a letter from her solicitor, Major Sean Duffy, but the embossment on the envelope that had come today indicated that the second letter was from his office.

  Giselle sat down and opened it. When she’d read it she stared out across the moonlit yard to the shadowy trees beyond. She could hear the curlew’s mournful song far away in the direction of the creek, where, it was said, a clan of Aboriginal people had been massacred many years earlier.

  ‘He’s asleep,’ Karolina Schumann said, joining her daughter on the verandah. ‘He didn’t put up much of a resistance this evening – he was absolutely exhausted . . . Is that a letter from Louise?’

  ‘No, it is a letter from Mr Duffy. It appears that Patrick left a will superseding the one that exiled us to Glen View. It seems that David is a major shareholder of the family company, although of course he is unable to assume direct control until he is twenty-one.’

  ‘My God,’ Karolina said. ‘You’re not as poor as a church mouse after all.’

  ‘I’m afraid the change of circumstances will not return Alexander’s house to us, or even return us to Sydney,’ Giselle said. ‘Until my son turns twenty-one we will remain at George’s mercy.’

  ‘You do not wish to return to Sydney?’ her mother asked.

  ‘This is my home now,’ Giselle replied softly. ‘This place makes me feel closer to Alex, it’s where he grew up. David will grow strong here. And he’ll be safe from George. I’m afraid that my brother-in-law will try to harm David in some way. He is a very dangerous man.’

  The two women sat in silence for a while. Eventually Giselle sighed and looked over at her mother. ‘What do you plan to do when the war is over?’

  ‘If the Australian government grants me permission to leave, I wish to return to New Guinea and take back our plantation,’ Karolina said. ‘It is all I have – other than you and David.’

  ‘But what of the pastor?’ Giselle asked in surprise.

  ‘Karl is a very good man,’ Karolina replied, ‘and a part of me will always be grateful for the love and understanding he has shown, but we are too different.’

  ‘Are you intending to leave him?’ Giselle wondered why she should feel so concerned when she had always frowned on their relationship, living as man and wife when they were not so.

  Karolina looked at her daughter with a sad expression. ‘There have been letters from his ministry admonishing him for living in sin – and with a Jewess too. God knows how they found out about our circumstances from the other side of the world, but they have, and even though Karl says that he’s not concerned about the accusations, I know they could ruin his career in the church. No, it is best if we separate.’

  ‘I’m so sorry it has come to this,’ Giselle said with genuine concern. ‘But I also understand.’

  Karolina reached over and touched her daughter on the cheek. ‘You and David are all I have left in this world. For years I carried hate in my heart, blaming your husband for the death of your father. But when I look at David I can’t help but see Alexander. A child so beautiful and so much a part of his father makes up for the years of pain.’ Karolina shook her head. ‘But enough of this gloomy talk. I see that you have a letter from Louise and I expect her news will make us smile. She is a good friend to you.’

  Giselle opened her sister-in-law’s letter and began reading aloud about parties, balls and afternoon teas. Outside, the curlews continued their cry under the crystal-clear night sky.

  The room stank of decomposition, and rising damp had added to the stench. Inspector Jack Firth stood at the feet of the woman’s bloated body. She was lying on her back in the middle of the tiny living room. On the walls were faded prints of the Sacred Heart and a couple of popular landscapes. Clothing hung on string from one wall to another and it was already smelling musty. Jack had seen many such scenes in his long career; they were not uncommon in the slums of inner Sydney. Those who could afford the real estate were already moving to the leafy suburbs ringing the city; only the poor and desperate remained in the overcrowded, unsanitary shacks bordered by narrow, rubbish-strewn laneways.

  The victim was in her late forties and had probably been stabbed to death, Jack mused as he stood staring at the murder scene.

  ‘You know who she is?’ he asked, turning to a young constable in his dark blue uniform and white pith helmet. The constable was staring at the decomposing body with an expression of morbid interest. The dead woman’s floral dress was up around her hips and she was naked from the waist down.

  ‘Er, not sure, sir,’ he replied.

  ‘You bloody well should know everyone on your beat if you want to be a good copper,’ Jack growled.

  ‘Think I know her,’ the police photographer said, squinting through the camera’s aperture to frame his subject. ‘She was one of the girls who worked for a bloke called Lenny Johnson. She mostly worked around Railway Square. I was on a job over there about a month back and noticed her with Lenny. I don’t know her name, though.’

  ‘Thanks, Sid. When you’ve finished, let the fingerprint crew in. Constable, arrange to have the body moved to the morgue.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ the constable replied. ‘What do you think happened, sir?’

  ‘Pretty bloody obvious,’ Firth answered. ‘She was raped and stabbed to death. A client probably left his wallet at home and she said that she didn’t put jobs on a chit.’

  Jack Firth stepped out of the room onto the narrow landing, but the smell of rotting flesh followed him. From experience he guessed that she had been dead for at least a week and in this part of town no one talked. This was Frog Hollow, an area of Surry Hills into which even police were reluctant to venture. Jack reckoned that his only chance of nailing someone for this murder was to lean on his informants. He patted his suit pockets to locate his packet of cigarettes. He removed one and struck a match. It helped with the smell a little.

  There were heavy footsteps on the wooden stairway leading to the landing.

  A constable appeared and said, ‘Got a message from Phillip Street that you are wanted by the inspector general, sir.’

  Jack frowned. It was very rare for the head of the New South Wales police force to request to see one of his subordinates unless something was awry.

  He stubbed out his cigarette and made his way to the street. He hopped onto a tram and got off at the corner of Phillip and Hunter. The Star Hotel had once stood on the site but it had been razed and in its place was the multistoreyed police headquarters.

  Jack went directly to the office of Inspector General James Mitchell. He knocked and was bid enter. Jack stepped inside the office and looked across to a desk where a man with spectacles and intelligent eyes stared up at him.

  ‘I got a message that you wanted to see me, sir,’ Jack said.

  ‘Have a seat, Inspector Firth,’ Mitchell said politely. ‘There is a serious matter I wish to discuss with you before anything gets committed to paper.’

  Jack eased himself onto a leather chair. He felt distinctly uncomfortable – he had a lot in his past that might come back to bite him. But he also reas
sured himself that he was the best in the business of snatching criminals and his reputation outstripped his rank. ‘Well, sir, I have nothing to hide.’

  ‘That’s good,’ Mitchell said. ‘It has come to my attention that while you were seconded to the intelligence departments some impropriety may have occurred on your shifts. What do you have to say to that?’

  Jack squirmed but attempted to keep his composure. His focus was drawn to a thick folder on Mitchell’s desk; it was marked with his name. He recognised it immediately and felt a cold chill of apprehension.

  ‘Sir, with respect, you have to be more specific.’

  Mitchell glanced down at the thick folder. ‘I have before me information in regards to certain irregularities concerning an alien prisoner, Karolina Schumann. Possibly you could explain.’

  ‘I am not aware of any irregularities, sir,’ Jack protested.

  ‘The matter of having her released last year from Holsworthy internment camp – without authorisation from either our department or that of the military,’ Mitchell said. ‘That constitutes a serious breach of police regulations.’

  ‘I am not sure what you mean, sir,’ Jack lied. ‘I may have been negligent in some of my reporting but I have not contravened any regulations. Any investigation into what I did when I was detached will clear me.’

  ‘You sound very sure of yourself, Inspector Firth,’ Mitchell said. ‘I hope not only for your sake but also for the department’s that you are right. You are one of my most senior police and a damned good detective. It will look bad for us all if it turns out there was some wrongdoing in relation to this case.’ Mitchell closed the file and pushed it to one side of his desk. ‘That will be all, Inspector Firth.’

  Jack made a hasty retreat from the office. It wasn’t until he had left the building that he could breathe properly again. That file could be the end of his police career if anyone with half a brain read between the lines. But how had the inspector general got hold of it? Jack had made sure it had been buried in the bureaucracy of police paperwork. He was shaking and he reached for a cigarette to steady his nerves.

  ‘Duffy and Griffiths,’ he snarled under his breath. Those two had to be behind the file finding its way upstairs to Mitchell’s office. The bastards. It was time to discuss this matter with the man whose payroll financed his weakness for the horses – George Macintosh. Duffy and Griffiths were still a threat to both of them and it was time to eradicate the threat.

  Firth knew that this would not be easy. Duffy and Griffiths were tough men who had long ago lost any fear of physical threat, having returned from the hell of the trenches. But they were in his territory now and he knew that he had the edge.

  Harry Griffiths sat on a stool in the bar of one of Sydney’s less salubrious hotels. He was chatting with another former serviceman, Lenny Johnson, who had decided to use his skills to rob innocent victims out on the mean streets at night, and to pimp out a couple of girls on those same streets. Lenny had been discharged from the army as suffering severe shellshock, although Harry knew different. Lenny had studied the symptoms of shellshock and feigned them in front of doctors in a hospital in England. Harry didn’t judge him for that. There had been times when he might have done the same thing to get out of hell. Harry often came to Lenny for information; there wasn’t much that happened in the inner city that Lenny didn’t know about.

  The two men were chatting when Harry suddenly felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up; this eerie sense of danger had saved his life several times during active service.

  ‘Well, well, well,’ a familiar voice behind him said, and Harry turned to face Inspector Jack Firth. Firth was in the company of four uniformed officers who were watching the patrons of the pub warily. ‘So you consort with Lenny here, do you?’ Firth said with a sneer.

  ‘It’s a free country,’ Harry said. ‘I drink with whoever I want.’

  Lenny had not turned to face the police inspector, but slouched over the glass of beer on the counter before him.

  ‘Your lucky day, Griffiths,’ Firth said. ‘I have come to ask Lenny here to accompany me down to Phillip Street. I might just be coming back for you too, and then your chum Duffy won’t be able to protect you.’

  ‘What you want me for?’ Lenny asked in a sullen tone.

  Firth reached out and grabbed Lenny by the hair, dragging him from his stool. The man hit the hard floor with a sickening thud.

  ‘Resisting arrest for a start,’ Jack said, pulling Lenny to his feet. ‘Then a few questions about the stinking corpse of one of your ladies.’

  The constables looked uncomfortable but obviously knew better than to protest Firth’s rough method of arrest. Lenny was frogmarched out onto the street with Jack Firth following.

  When the police left, the talk in the public bar started up again, although it was subdued now, as though no one wanted to draw attention to themselves.

  The barman idled over to Harry. ‘I’d keep my head down, Harry, if I were you,’ he said quietly. ‘I heard tell that bastard is gunning for you. I’d take his threat seriously and make yourself scarce.’

  ‘Yeah, I might do that,’ Harry said, swallowing the last of his lemon squash. ‘But Firth will have to be up early if he thinks he is going to take me down. I might just get him first.’

  Harry left the pub and made his way home. He was worried now. He had seen the look in Firth’s eyes. The same cold look men had after the terrible stress of hand-to-hand combat. It was the look of death.

  4

  Captain Matthew Duffy sat at the tiny table in his tent, finishing a letter to his mother, Kate Tracy. He did so with some guilt as he was not a very good letter writer, and he preferred that she did not know what life was really like for him flying the dangerous skies of Palestine. He could not tell her how sometimes the strain got so bad that he would be physically sick before he flew missions deep into enemy territory, or that he sometimes had trouble controlling his shaking hands. Publicly, he and the other pilots in the fighter squadron played the game of not feeling any fear, but in private their bodies shook and their nightmares made them shout out their fears into the desert nights.

  Matthew finished the letter and placed it in an envelope. Censorship was not applied to officers but he had nothing to censor anyway. It was an only partially true monologue of good times and bad food. He gazed out the flap of his tent at the flat, treeless horizon. The afternoon’s briefing to the aircrews of his squadron had not raised morale. They had strafed the railway station of Amman and destroyed a bridge in the north, but the Turkish engineers had repaired the line so their supply trains were running once again. It also seemed the enemy airfield over at Jenin had been expanded to seventeen hangars, and fourteen aircraft had been counted on the airstrip.

  Everyone at the briefing was aware what it all meant; that they would have to return to the dangerous, low-level bombing missions where there was a good chance of being shot down by an enemy plane or ground fire.

  Matthew stood up from the table, ready to head to the officers’ mess, when he realised someone was standing at the tent’s entrance. The strongly built, bearded man was wearing the traditional garb of an Arab irregular.

  ‘Saul, you old bastard,’ Matthew cried, stepped over to embrace the man he could have called brother. ‘What’s it been . . . a year?’

  Saul Rosenblum was not actually an Arab irregular serving in the cause of Colonel Lawrence, he was just dressed that way to pass in these lands. He was a former Australian cattleman with Jewish ancestry who had enlisted to fight in South Africa eighteen years earlier; he had deserted the army in the name of love, and eventually found himself on a moshava in Palestine where he had rapidly risen to be one of the leaders. His military expertise had saved his community on more than one occasion, and his two sons were also learning to protect their small community against their hostile Arab neighbours. Both Matthew and Saul had served together at the battle for Elands River in South Africa and had become firm friends. They had m
et up again when Matthew had been posted to flying missions in this part of the world and it was through Saul that Matthew had met Joanne Barrington. Saul was older than Matthew by around ten years and time had added a few pounds to his girth.

  ‘Ah, Matthew, how are you, old son?’ Saul said, staring into Matthew’s face and smiling broadly. ‘I hear that you’ve now shot down four enemy aircraft. One more will make you an ace.’

  ‘How in hell did you know that?’ Matthew asked.

  Saul tapped the side of his nose. ‘That you should ask me such a question,’ he said with an all-knowing arch of his eyebrows.

  ‘Come, have a seat,’ Matthew said, dragging across a camp stool and unfolding it. ‘Tell me, how is your family?’

  ‘They’re all well. And we are all still grateful to you for saving our village.’

  ‘I didn’t do much,’ Matthew said, waving away his involvement in the British-sanctioned operation to destroy a radical Arab leader and his followers. ‘You and Joanne took all the risks.’

  ‘Ah, it is interesting that you should mention Miss Barrington’s name. I am not sure if you are aware, but she has returned to this part of the world.’

  Saul’s news gave Matthew a jolt like an electric shock. For a moment he was at a loss for words.

  ‘I see from your reaction that you were not aware of this,’ Saul continued gently. ‘She is in Cairo working with the British. I saw her when I was there on a matter for the British army.’

  ‘How is she?’ Matthew said finally. ‘Is she well?’

  ‘She is, although I think she feels torn between her work and her role as a mother,’ Saul answered. ‘She has twins, a boy and a girl.’

  ‘Tell me, old friend, do you know their names?’ Matthew asked eagerly. ‘Did she bring them with her?’

  ‘Your son is named James and your daughter is Olivia,’ Saul replied with a gentle smile. ‘As far as I know they are doing well in the care of their grandfather in New Hampshire. He is a man of great wealth and influence.’