So Simmons nodded and cleared his throat and said, ‘I would like to see those letters,’ and he got up from his chair.
Odette stood too, furious as hell.
‘I’m, ah, very sorry about your mother passing,’ said Detective Sergeant Simmons to Benny, who looked up at him with no emotion.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
Then she looked briefly at Odette, as if to apologise, before extending a long arm towards the end of the garden. ‘There’s a box of my mother’s books in that shed. You can take them all away. I don’t want them back.’
58
As the surrounding shops were just swinging open their doors on Thursday morning, the Cedar Valley Public Hall—a Federation era brick building on Valley Road—had been long awake with activity.
The service for the unknown man was to be held that afternoon at five-thirty, and Betsy and Fran had gone all-out in the arrangements. Considering they had their own establishments to tend to during working hours, the women had arrived at six-thirty in the morning to prepare. Chairs were brought out from back rooms and set in long rows. They felt it prudent to plan for low attendance, so they spread them out in a manner designed to give the impression of fullness, and they set up the lectern and arranged a small table for flowers. A simple brochure had been printed, with Betsy presiding over the design.
In lieu of any photos taken of the man while he was alive, the front cover of the brochure was the police-issued sketch—they’d cut it out from the newspaper. Cedar Valley’s Unknown Man was printed in a serif font and underneath that: ? – 1 December 1993.
Fran had consulted with Carol and John Hargraves regarding a suitable verse. Carol had suggested a short piece by Nancy Byrd Turner called ‘Death is a Door’, because of its optimism, and because Betsy Dell had been very strict about not wanting any mention of God or heaven. It was probably due to the fact that Fran was so well liked that the library had agreed to print the brochures free of charge.
The wake was to be held at the Royal Tavern after the service, and Tom Boyd had seemed slightly amused by the idea, in his unexcitable fashion. Fran had promised to provide two platters of party pies for guests, while acknowledging repeatedly that this was not a party at all.
•
At the Cedar Valley police station, Detective Sergeant Anthony Simmons had finally spoken to the woman in Sydney who ran the small hotel near Central Station.
She rasped at him down the line in a voice like a cornhusk, elaborating slightly on what she had told Hall. She recalled the man well enough. He’d checked in around seven in the evening on the last day of November with regular clothes on—a button-down shirt as she remembered it—and a suitcase. No, it wasn’t a vintage number, just a modern zip-up thing that you’d see circling around on any airport carousel. The man had spoken so little, and the woman was no expert in accents, but she was sure that he had one, and she guessed it was European. He had paid cash, and the name he gave was T. Keane. She would send a fax to the station—a copy of the guestbook where he had signed in. She had no idea as to his night-time activities, nor if he’d received any visitors in his room.
He checked out early in the morning of December 1st and left his room spotless. ‘Cleaner than when he arrived, that’s for sure,’ she said, and she cracked up laughing at the hilarious joke that was, apparently, her hotel’s low standard in housekeeping.
But the main reason the woman remembered him at all was that he left wearing a thick brown suit, with a jumper underneath on the first day of summer. Not a cloud in the sky, a top of almost thirty expected, and the man was dressed for a wartime winter social.
It was on a hunch that, on hanging up from the hotel lady, Simmons placed a call to the German consulate in Sydney to issue a description: he had an unknown male with a European accent and a German-made comb in his pocket.
The dry man on the other end of the phone seemed entirely dubious.
‘So he’s German because of a comb,’ he said.
‘Would you humour me?’ said Simmons, realising as he said it that humour was something this man did not do.
‘I will undertake to fulfil your request,’ said the man in a German accent, and he reluctantly provided a fax number so Simmons could send over the sketch, which he reluctantly agreed to circulate within the appropriate divisions.
Simmons had spent about three minutes looking through the box of books belonging to Vivian Moon. The novels he had set aside, but the travel guides and phrasebooks were of slightly more interest. He flipped through photographs of the Eiffel Tower and the Champs-Elysees, but it only made him feel bothered by how much Jenny longed to go to Paris and how much he did not.
But Vivian Moon’s well-read copy of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam? Well, that was something.
Simmons found it near the top—the books were shoved in every which way, like whoever had packed them was in a hurry—and there it was, a small volume with a green cover and gold letters. He held it in both of his big hands before he flipped through, astounded by the amount of notes this woman—Viv—had written in there, and entirely thrown by the language.
But here it was: a link. Something to substantiate Cora Franks’s story that Vivian Moon had stolen the very comb that they had found in the dead man’s pocket. Now he had Vivian Moon’s meaningfully marked-up copy of the book made infamous by the Somerton Man. What did it all mean?
‘It means it’s circumstantial, doesn’t it? That would be circumstantial evidence,’ said Hall, who was leaning forward in his chair, elbows on his thighs, a picture of judicious enthusiasm.
Simmons raised his eyebrows.
‘I mean, substantially circumstantial,’ said Hall.
‘Are we going to fucking court tomorrow, Jimmy?’ said Simmons. ‘We have the comb and we have the book. Are you telling me that’s a coincidence? There is no such thing as a coincidence.’
Hall nodded, frowning, and glanced over at Gussy Franklin, who was sprawled in his chair with a look of amusement on his face.
‘I’ve got dead ends everywhere with the blonde, hey,’ said Gussy Franklin. ‘I got no one who’s seen if she had a car. We assume she did, but no one’s seen it. Jimmy checked back with the bus service to make sure, but no one reckons they picked her up. It doesn’t seem that she ate in town or bought anything except for the pills. Ed Johnson acted kind of cagey about the whole thing, but Ed acts cagey about everything. I think he just wants attention.’
Simmons made a noise: a grumble. His back pained him, and a headache—a swelling between his ears—was forming. He opened his drawer and found the Panadol there under his sweat towel. The whole blister pack was empty, and he closed the drawer again with some force.
‘I’m thinking she killed him,’ said Franklin.
‘Who, the blonde?’ asked Simmons, looking up, unable to tell if Gussy Franklin was serious or not.
‘What else have we got, boss?’ Franklin said. ‘He had to get the poison in him somehow. And she’s done a good job of disappearing, hasn’t she? Getting in and out of town, taking a call at a payphone. Leaving without a trace.’
Hall was still frowning.
‘She’s obviously a bloody spy, too,’ said Franklin. He grinned at Simmons. ‘That’s what Lil Chapman thinks. Barry’s had his KGB books out.’
Simmons hooted at the thought of it. Lil and Barry Chapman, reading their spy stories, having a crack at a theory. Lil Chapman of all people, such a pasty woman.
‘Wait, because we think our guy’s a spy?’ said Hall. ‘But we don’t even know if the Somerton Man was a spy.’
‘They’re all spies!’ said Simmons, giggling now, his huge frame vibrating with amusement. ‘German spies!’
Franklin slapped his trunk of a thigh and Hall smiled nervously, realising that he should be laughing. So, tentatively, he laughed. And then the three of them were having a grand old time, laughing loudly and carrying on—right up until Simmons sensed a presence.
Odette Fisher was standing in the door
way.
Simmons looked up, startled, and there she was in a dark-coloured dress, her grey hair long to her shoulders, as dignified a woman as had ever set foot in the Cedar Valley police station.
‘Odette,’ he said, standing. ‘Hello.’
‘Hello, Tony,’ Odette said coolly. She held out a thick wad of envelopes. ‘I have these for you. They’re Vivian’s letters.’
59
Cora Franks, dressed in a pink floral robe, stood in front of her vanity mirror, practising out loud her oration for the funeral.
She’d been up late fixing it. Rewriting sections. Adding a few personal anecdotes and then taking them out again. She longed to make a good impression on the audience, and she felt in the very depths of her that she wouldn’t.
Using one of her several watches, she timed the final version so she could give Fran an estimate. It was four minutes. Was that too short—to commemorate the entire life of a human being? But what more was she to say, given she didn’t know him in the slightest?
She wandered through the house to find Fred, who was cleaning his fishing reels, and she quietly explained her dilemma—just very softly, almost in a whisper, because she could hear busy sounds coming from Odette’s cottage next door, and she knew Benny Miller was out there working in the garden, and Cora didn’t want Benny, or anyone, to overhear.
•
Over the fence, on her hands and knees in the sun-dappled yard, Benny Miller had very much committed herself to the task of gardening. She had risen early and made the bed, sliding her hand over the quilt to flatten it evenly, folding the sheet over at the top. The python announced its presence with a heaving sound from the ceiling, and Benny was almost pleased to hear it. Standing in the shower, among the pink tiles, she scrubbed her body down with the stiff loofa until her skin went red. Her breakfast was a cheese jaffle and she ate it at the outdoor setting to the sound of the bush noise and Fred Franks whistling and working away on something next door.
From the gardening magazines that were in the shed, Benny had been learning about the benefits of pruning. She applied a pair of Odette’s old secateurs to the rosemary and what she now knew was correa. Later, still outside, she wrote three brief letters to friends in Sydney, and a particularly warm letter to Jules Cowrie, asking how he was and telling him a little about her days. It was almost as an afterthought that she wrote one more letter—just a few lines really—to her father.
Perhaps a part of her did miss him?
She wondered this as she addressed the envelopes and put the stamps on, and then she went about tidying the kitchen while the radio played the Christian music station.
Benny Miller busied herself all morning, and it was only for a brief moment that she allowed herself to sit still on the front verandah, watching the slow activity of the street. She sat, thinking, and found herself thinking mainly of Odette Fisher.
Does she like me? Benny wondered this. Even though Odette had given every indication that she did—that she liked her very much—Benny wondered if it could really be true. What an embarrassment it was, to be thinking like this, and Benny knew that. But she couldn’t help it. She sat there, watching a man across the street who was taking a long time attaching a camper trailer to the back of his car, and she wondered: was it possible that a woman such as Odette Fisher could truly like her? Or was she just being kind—dutiful—and, all the while, searching for an excuse to withdraw?
•
Odette arrived, as planned, in the early afternoon.
‘It really looks good, doesn’t it?’ said Odette as they walked out to admire their work in the garden, and Benny thought Odette looked beautiful in her linen dress and leather shoes. She wore a long silver necklace with a turquoise stone.
Odette sat down at the kitchen table and Benny put the kettle on, but Odette said, ‘Since we’re off to a funeral I thought we should have a proper drink,’ and she produced a longneck in a paper bag from her handbag. Benny grinned and fetched two glasses from the dresser.
She poured the beer into glasses, and the two of them discussed the garden for only a few minutes before Odette said, ‘I went by the police station to drop off Vivian’s letters’—and Benny looked across at Odette, saw her grave expression, and realised then that the occasion of their beer was not in preparation for a strange funeral, but a preparation for difficult news.
Benny took a sip and swallowed.
‘I think it’s time I told you about some of the things Vivian wrote in them,’ said Odette.
‘Okay,’ said Benny, and a cold sensation swept across her, like swimming under the water at the river.
Odette sat back in her chair and took a sip of the beer. And then she began to explain to Benny—slowly, thoughtfully—that the more she thought about it, the more she felt that Tony Simmons, the tall policeman, would find Vivian’s letters of interest. She had hated the thought of giving them to him, but a part of her was relieved by the act of handing them over. For Odette had read them all again, these past couple of days, poring over them and then lying sleepless in her bed, with Bessel snoring on the mat beside her. She had churned with the information and what it meant. There were so many things that she knew already—and had long forgotten—or that she had not really thought over at the time. And all these things felt relevant now, in ways she would never have expected.
Vivian Moon was a passionate person. Heady and restless, she was forever chasing stimulation. She was a fool for it. And Odette could see that now: just how searching Vivian was, and how unmoored.
At the time, Odette didn’t think much about the man Vivian met in Europe. A letter had announced their first encounter—at a bookstore in West Berlin, ‘under the shadow of the Wall’, as Vivian had written. Odette had loved this kind of phrase, never knowing if it was literal or metaphoric.
Vivian and this man had struck up a conversation in the bookshop’s cafe over a book Vivian had just purchased—a German translation of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam—and Vivian, who found the man very handsome, had invited him to sit. The book had led directly to the topic of the Somerton Man: an obscure unsolved mystery from Adelaide, Australia, just after the war.
The man in the cafe was instantly intrigued. His English was very good—with a strong German accent—and Vivian found him curious, charming. More than that, he was enigmatic, and the one thing Vivian Moon loved was a mystery.
Their first official date was at a hotel bar and she had told him briefly of her childhood years in Adelaide, her interest in philosophy, her most recent travels. The man, on the other hand, tended to avoid self-revelation. He smiled and shrugged his shoulders in a way that she found almost conspiratorial. Vivian Moon was fascinated by his constant deflections and unusual manner.
Over several letters to Odette, Vivian described the ongoing courtship. It was clear to Odette that Vivian was in love, or at least infatuated. On their third date, she had given the man the Rubaiyat as a gift, and he had looked around the hotel bar and put it immediately in his pocket, as if they were being watched. He whispered to her: Danke, mein Shatz.
Vivian wrote: ‘Oh Odie, you would laugh! I wrote a quote in the front of the book, just like Jestyn! And he does act so strangely, I find him fascinating. Now of course I am dreaming that he has some secret life, fighting the Stasi, and we will have to flee to South America together to escape a charge of treason. Now tell me—how are you, my dearest? How have you found the move to Cedar Valley?’
Odette had stopped and read over that letter again in the lamplight in her farmhouse, and had shaken her head at the absurdity of it. The harmless absurdity of Vivian and her intrigues, and the way things seemed to have turned out in the end. Although that was the thing—Odette was only speculating, at that point, how they had turned out at all.
Benny sat there at the kitchen table, listening to Odette, considering this man in Berlin who her mother had fallen in love with, and her mind went to the box of books she had given to the tall policeman—Tony Simmons—and, in p
articular, Vivian’s copy of the Rubaiyat, with all its fragrant quotes about drinking and impermanence and ‘True Light, Kindle to Love’.
Now with the New Year reviving old desires, the thoughtful soul to solitude retires. Vivian had underlined this, and then copied it out again inside the back cover.
Benny sat, worrying the table with her hands, and allowed herself to dwell, just for a moment, on Vivian’s death. On the very manner of it. And the stupid book, it echoed around inside her. We must beneath the couch of earth descend.
‘What happened to the man?’ Benny asked.
‘I don’t know,’ said Odette. ‘She was so enthralled by him, and then she just stopped talking about him. She came back to Australia and was living in Sydney, and then she moved here—and I can’t remember hearing anything more about the man. I know there was someone. I’ve always known that. I knew that was the reason she left Frank the first time and came here to figure it all out. Benny, Frank wasn’t the one for Vivian. I mean, you know that already. But I did know there was someone else—someone that she kept to herself. I don’t know why she didn’t tell me, because she told me everything. At least, I thought she told me everything. But I don’t know what happened to that man she met in Berlin—or if he’s even relevant now. And I imagine that’s what Tony Simmons is wondering too.’
The two of them sipped their beer, and Benny understood what Odette was saying. She understood—and the disquiet was so strong in her that she got up and went to the dresser and put some cashews in a bowl, just to be doing something, and she set the bowl on the table and felt that her hand was shaking with the effort.
‘What was his name?’ asked Benny. ‘The man in the bookstore?’
‘His name was Oskar,’ said Odette. ‘Oskar Konig.’
Cedar Valley Page 24
