How monstrous she was.
I am a ghastly person, thought Cora Franks, and she took a sip of weak tea.
•
That afternoon, Therese Johnson stayed a bit too long at Curios. She kept reaching for another bag of Lan-choo and filling her cup up again, going on about Ed Johnson and how she knew it for certain this time because he’d come home from the Royal smelling of some graceless perfume—musk—and Therese would never dream of wearing musk.
‘It was an awful fragrance. The kind that really elbows its way into a room and gives you a headache,’ said Therese, her red hair set as it always was: about half a foot all the way around her head, giving her the appearance of a pharaoh. Therese had been such an attractive and cosmopolitan woman in her time and yet, while vestiges of her beauty remained, Cora struggled increasingly to see them.
‘How ghastly,’ said Cora, about the musk, and Therese, and herself. ‘But, Therese, you mustn’t jump to conclusions. Remember the last time? He had a very good explanation.’
Cora didn’t believe a word she had just said, but what was she supposed to say? Ed Johnson was a shit. Everyone knew that. But he was Therese’s shit, and Therese loved him, and she seemed mostly willing to ignore his indiscretions until a rogue fragrance made them all too difficult to deny.
‘Last time? Which last time? Oh, for God’s sake …’
Therese whimpered into a tissue and Cora said, ‘Now, really, when you don’t know for certain, it’s best just to ask him and see what he says.’
Again, rubbish. But Cora was tired. And while it was always interesting to hear of someone having an affair, it was getting a bit old with Ed, and she really wanted Therese to leave.
And how was it that Therese could show such a heartless disinterest in the man who had died? How could she sit and talk exclusively about Ed at such a time, when a human life had been so mysteriously extinguished just outside the door?
‘I do need to finish that watch cabinet’ said Cora and, after a further half-hour of pained monologue, Therese rose and announced that she was doing foils for Barbie Robinson at two-thirty.
It wasn’t long after that Cora did a very uncharacteristic thing and closed the shop early.
‘You right, Cor?’ asked Lil from the doorway of the quilting store. She was dressed down in a lilac tracksuit, a cigarette in her bony hand.
‘A bit under the weather,’ said Cora.
‘I feel a bit off myself,’ said Lil. ‘Fred home?’
‘Should be,’ said Cora. ‘I’ll be right.’
‘You hear anything more?’ Lil indicated the big window where the dead man had died.
‘Tony said they’re waiting to hear from the hospital. Or the morgue? They’re waiting to hear from the person who checks the body.’
‘Golly,’ said Lil. ‘I just keep on thinking about him! He was just so dead, wasn’t he, Cor?’ She took an urgent drag of her cigarette.
‘He was,’ said Cora, and she gave Lil a wave before walking the short distance home in the afternoon sun, feeling not the best. She checked the letterbox then continued down the path to her front door, let herself in, and found Freddy Franks sitting on the couch reading a fishing magazine.
‘You’re home early,’ said Fred.
‘Did you go to the lake?’ asked Cora.
‘I did. I got a couple of flathead.’
‘Oh good, I didn’t feel like those chops,’ said Cora, and she went straight to the bedroom.
She changed into her house clothes and spent a while in front of the vanity, brushing her hair with her favourite soft-bristled brush. That always relaxed her. Later, at the kitchen table, she wrote a few cheques and addressed the envelopes. Long, slow thoughts about the dead man plagued her—and she went over her own awfulness, and got lost again in her resuscitating fantasy. And it was about then, as she hovered over the dead man’s face in her mind’s eye, her lips parted and ready to blow, that the faint nag of recognition came again. His face. Had she seen it before? She closed her eyes tightly and pictured him. How he’d been so motionless, staring off into the middle distance.
No.
No, she had never seen him before. She didn’t think she had. And yet she had this strange feeling.
But before she could decide one way or another, she was distracted by something out the window above the sink: that old Volvo was pulling in to the driveway next door.
Cora got up and peered out the window and saw a young woman get out of the car. A girl, really. She looked almost too young to be driving. She stood up, straight as a rake, then entered the green house.
Cora went to the fridge, and got the flathead and set it on the bench. Fred had filleted it carefully, leaving the skin and the wings on, and Cora liked it when he did that.
‘Who’s Ed getting his leg over this time?’ she said to Fred from the kitchen.
Ha ha ha, went Fred’s sleepy laugh. ‘Does Therese have a hunch, does she?’
‘Is it the one from Solent or the one from Clarke?’ asked Cora.
Fred came to stand in the doorway. His white hair was thick and wavy and his face was brown from fishing. He was such an easy person, Fred. He had this oddly uncomplicated relationship with the world. It was a friend to him. He didn’t struggle with his position in relation to other people, and Cora had no idea what that kind of existence might feel like. How did Fred aquire his natural simplicity? This was something Cora had long wished to learn.
‘It’s not funny,’ she said, fetching some garlic from a wooden bowl.
‘I know,’ said Fred. ‘Bloody Ed. He thinks he’s Christmas.’
‘Which one?’
‘A different one. It’s Linda this time. The one from the chicken factory.’
‘Her?’ Cora pictured the red-faced woman called Linda—so tawdry—her bra straps hopelessly visible from under her tank tops. She was from out of town but she drank at the Royal like a local. And she was married herself, as far as Cora knew, and Cora knew a great deal. ‘Well he’s certainly lowered his standards,’ she said.
‘Yeah well, Ed’s an opportunist. I guess he saw an opportunity,’ said Fred. ‘I’ve got to change the gas bottle. And then we can talk about murder.’ And he walked out the back towards the barbecue.
Cora went back to the fish. She rested it on a plate and began making a marinade, slicing a clove of garlic and imagining Ed, in one of the rooms above the Royal, having his way with Chicken Linda before heading downstairs for another game of pool.
Then the front door opened again on Odette Fisher’s cottage next door and Cora looked out her kitchen window and saw the young woman walk down the driveway and turn towards the shops. She had a nice figure, Cora thought. Lovely posture. Maybe she was a dancer, or some kind of gymnast. And not that it should come as a surprise, given her relation, but goodness gracious, she really did bear a striking resemblance to the young Vivian Moon.
14
Mark Foy’s phone rang out. The monotonous sound of the dial tone, like a bored bird, went on for an age before culminating abruptly in an engaged signal. Apparently Mark Foy did not own an answering machine.
Simmons waited a while and dialled the number again, propelled by his own interest and, an hour later, irritated, he gave up and told Franklin to call.
‘It just rings out,’ yelled Franklin through the open door. Then Franklin stepped out and Simmons got curious again at around four, and finally Mark Foy picked up and said, ‘Hello?’ in the casual voice of a bus driver.
‘Mark Foy?’ asked Simmons.
‘Speaking,’ said Mark Foy.
Simmons smiled. He introduced himself—still enjoying the sound of the word ‘detective’ in his title. Then he proceeded to ask Mark Foy if he recalled a well-dressed passenger taking the bus the day before, and if he’d be willing to give a formal statement.
Sure, Mark Foy remembered the gentleman in the brown suit and striped tie. He’d been sitting at the bus stop outside the train station at Clarke, like something from an ol
d movie.
‘Yeah, I thought, “Who’s this guy think he is? Humphrey Bogart?”’ And then Mark Foy laughed down the telephone.
Simmons was silent.
‘I mean, sorry—Doreen said he’s died.’
‘He has,’ said Simmons.
‘Yeah, bugger,’ said Mark Foy, and he explained to Simmons how the gentleman had boarded the bus and bought a single ticket. He was pleasant enough, though a man of few words; he said nothing but the name of his destination —‘Cedar Valley’—and then he shuffled along and sat at the back of the bus. Mark Foy then picked up several more passengers, including Des Cohen, who also barracked for the Steelers, and Des sat in the spot closest to the driver’s seat and they talked about footy for a fair stretch. Mark was a bit distracted by that conversation, as he told Simmons. The bloke in the suit sat right up the back and, come Cedar Valley, he got off.
Simmons asked if the man had any luggage with him, or bags of any kind, and Mark Foy said he didn’t. Simmons asked if anyone sat with the man or if he interacted with other people on the bus. Mark Foy said he didn’t. Simmons asked if anyone else got off at Cedar Valley, and Mark thought about that for a few beats before saying, no, he was pretty sure it was just the man in the suit.
‘What kind of voice did he have? Did he sound like he was from the city?’
‘I don’t know. Like I said he didn’t really say anything.’
‘Do you remember what kind of money he gave you? A five? A ten?’
‘Um …’ Mark Foy seemed to be thinking about this. ‘Oh yeah, he had the exact change. That’s always nice, isn’t it?’
Simmons wrote this down. ‘Anything else you can think of? Anything unusual?’
‘Well, yeah,’ said Mark. ‘I thought he must be hot.’
Simmons made a noise of agreement and thanked Mark Foy for his time. Then he hung up and was reading over the notes he had taken—his handwriting so oddly childlike—when Franklin appeared at the door.
‘Kerry from the Clarke RTA does not have a male cousin who’s missing, and his brother is accounted for,’ said Franklin, grinning.
‘I’ll sleep better tonight then,’ said Simmons.
Franklin put his hands on his very wide hips. ‘Les had nothing.’
‘How surprising.’
‘I mailed the prints off to Parramatta.’
‘Very good.’
‘They were hard to get. The prints. Jimmy struggled.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Stiff fingers,’ said Franklin, and the two men considered that quietly before Franklin added, ‘The paper ran a mention of him though,’ and he held up the newspaper so Simmons could see it.
Simmons beckoned him in with his hand, and Franklin opened the paper to page two and set it on the desk. MAN DIES ON VALLEY ROAD read a small headline, with a few sentences reporting that an ‘unknown man’ had died of ‘unknown causes’ outside Curios & Old Wares in Cedar Valley.
Simmons read the article quickly then he closed the paper and said to Franklin, ‘Well good for him, he’s famous. Can you turn the fan up on your way out?’
Gussy Franklin obliged.
The hot air moved around, ever so slightly.
Simmons opened the bottom drawer of his desk, where he kept his sweat towel and his painkillers. He retrieved the towel, bent over in his chair, and wiped his torso under his shirt. It was so unappealing when the sweat announced itself in wet patches on the material. He wiped his face and neck, too, before putting the towel back and slamming the drawer shut. Then he leaned back and collected his thoughts about the gentleman in the suit, who was proving far more difficult to identify than Simmons had expected.
Who was this man?
Hall had been at it all morning and had so far established that the dead man had caught the 7.23 am train from Central Station in Sydney and got off at Clarke. No one working at Central remembered him, but that was no surprise to anyone. It was a busy station.
So, what did he do in Clarke? Did he meet someone? Did he buy something? Did anyone even see him? At this point all Simmons knew was that at 11.05 am the man was sitting at the Clarke Station bus stop resembling Humphrey Bogart. He boarded the bus, with no bags. He had exact change—so he knew already how much the bus ticket would cost; Simmons found that interesting—and he’d had no other money on him once he’d bought that ticket.
All of this was peculiar.
Why would a man come to Cedar Valley with no bags and no money?
Simmons considered this and made a clicking sound with his mouth—tock, tock, tock. He glanced at the phone and wondered if he’d hear anything about cause of death before the end of the day. He should visit his mother after work. Elsie Simmons. His heart popped a bit when he thought of her recent fragility.
Simmons looked down at his small pile of notes and a photocopy of the fingerprints of the unknown gentleman. He must have known someone in Cedar Valley. Why else would he come here with no means even to buy a pie, let alone leave again?
And if he had no bags, surely he must have had a wallet at some point. So, what if he was relieved of his wallet in some way? What if he dropped it?
If he got off the bus in Cedar Valley and walked directly to Curios, or even if he strolled there slowly, he would have sat down at approximately five to one. This fitted well with what Cora Franks had said. But surely more people must have seen him. Cedar Valley was small, but it was no ghost town. There were people about all the time on Valley Road.
They needed to put out a call for more information.
Simmons stood up and walked out of his office, a determined feeling rising in his chest.
‘Call the bus company back,’ he said. ‘Ask for lost property and see if anyone found a wallet on the bus. Maybe he dropped it and no one’s put it together.’
Franklin nodded.
‘I’m gonna walk back and see if I can’t see a wallet fallen somewhere in the gutter. Or bloody something. Jimmy, you’re coming with me.’
And so Constable James Hall, eyes like tiny saucers, and Detective Sergeant Anthony Simmons walked back across the road to the bus stop, and then very slowly down to Curios, with their eyes and their noses to the ground.
15
The Royal Tavern was a big old building on the corner of Valley Road and Gould Street and was painted pink like the chest of a galah. The frames of the windows, of which there were many—tall and spread along both levels—were yellow. The doors, dormers and the entirety of the second storey’s wraparound verandah: a pale peppermint green.
Benny Miller stood on the footpath looking upwards, admiring the colour scheme. She stared at the stone numbers under the eaves, commemorating the year of construction, 1859. An old sign for VB hung in the window, and next to that the handwritten note advertising a vacant position. All rounder required, it said, and Benny Miller walked up a stone step and through the main doors of the pub with all the confidence she could muster and the words of Odette Fisher in her head: Talk to Tom and tell him you’re family.
Music was playing when she walked inside—something by Slim Dusty—and the sound of it was good; it reminded her of Frank Miller in a welcome way. A few men were sitting up at the bar, and two women were perched on stools at a high table under a window. Afternoon light poured in, golden on the floorboards, and a pool table sat centrally, with coloured balls set up in a neat triangle. Olden-days photos of Valley Road were hung on the walls.
Benny approached the bar slowly, trying to suppress the discomfort that came from being a stranger in a bar such as this, full of locals who were well acquainted with one other. A grey-haired man was pouring a beer into a tilted glass and talking to a fellow in a terry-towelling hat, and Benny stood rigid between two stools and waited. She looked around and saw all kinds of memorabilia stuck on the walls and arranged on shelves. Postcards, Polaroid photos, old toys and figurines, a taxidermied possum. And money; there must have been a hundred bills from all different countries, tacked up in neat rows.
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br /> ‘What’re you having?’ the man behind the bar asked in Benny’s direction, his voice as deep as a valley.
‘I’m here about the job,’ Benny said.
‘Ah, brilliant,’ said the man. ‘Come have a seat.’
Benny followed him along to the far end of the bar and sat on a stool, while the grey-haired man leaned his elbows on the bar mat and said, ‘I’m Tom.’
How old was this man? Benny couldn’t tell. He must have been over fifty, with his thick grey hair cropped very short. His skin was tough and tanned, and grey stubble covered his cheeks.
Benny introduced herself and explained that she was new to the town. She had experience as a bartender, she told him, and had worked part time for almost two years at a pub in Sydney; before that she’d waitressed in a cafe. Benny offered the name of the pub—it was the British Lion—and the name of the publican, who had liked Benny well enough, and Tom wrote this information down on the back of a coaster. He asked her where in town she was living and she told him—on Wiyanga Crescent—and she remembered her instructions from Odette.
‘Odette Fisher told me to come by and see you about the job—’ she said ‘—because I’m … family.’
The sentence had come out strangely stilted. Benny had been too eager and then she’d faltered at the end of it and tripped on the last word.
‘Odette?’ asked Tom in his gravel voice. ‘Are you her …’ He paused as if sizing up Benny’s age and appearance, trying to guess the relation.
‘Oh. Well, I mean—’ And Benny stopped mid-sentence, blushing. What kind of family was she supposed to be? Why had she just announced it like that with no further plan?
Tom looked at her, waiting, and then said, ‘Well, tell Odette I said hello.’
Benny looked down at the damp bar mat, and Tom carried on, untroubled, explaining the opening hours and shift times, the pay. All the information was coming out rather quickly, Tom still holding the coaster on which he’d written British Lion, Glebe, and Benny realised then that he was never going to look up the telephone number and call.
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