Murder Unmentioned (9781921997440)

by Gentill, Sulari

  “Why’s he here? Do you know?”

  “Murder this time—shot a man in cold blood. Over Nellie, I’m told. You need to watch your back.”

  Rowland’s smile was wry. “I’m in here for murder, too.”

  “Yes, but he actually did it.”

  Rowland looked at Milton uneasily. “If I had shot my father, would that have made me as reprehensible as Green?”

  “Are you asking about you, or Wilfred?”

  Rowland groaned, and rubbed his face.

  “Look, Rowly,” Milton said, moving to lean back on the wall beside his friend. “I get it. He’s your brother. But has it ever occurred to you that he may have had reasons, other than protecting you, to kill your father?”

  “Father and Wil were always at odds over business,” Rowland replied. “Wil wanted to expand and modernise in a way Father considered reckless. But that argument started before the war. Why would he suddenly be driven to murder over it?”

  “Your brother has a reputation for ruthlessness, Rowly. He didn’t show that bastard Hayden any mercy.”

  Rowland’s eyes darkened. “He didn’t deserve any. Hayden made it sound like he was just some downtrodden pawn. That’s not how I remember it. He beat me senseless on a regular basis for five years. And then he’d brag to the other men, tell them how the boss’ boy would beg.” Rowland laughed bitterly. “That was before I realised begging just made it worse.”

  Milton shook his head in disbelief. “I always thought you had it so good, that you’d been dealt all the good cards.”

  Rowland shrugged. “Swings and roundabouts, Milt.”

  “I gotta hand it to you, Rowly,” he said. “By anyone’s standards your father was a bastard, treats you worse than a dog and then he gets gunned down in the next room, and you just straighten your tie and carry on. Maybe that’s why your lot find it so easy to oppress the proletariat—you don’t flinch.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Rowland said ruefully. “I was a bit of a firebrand for a long time, quite unreasonable to be honest.”

  Milton laughed. “What—because you wouldn’t assume your place in the Graziers’ Association, join the Country Party and marry an appropriate debutante?”

  Rowland’s eyes became distant as he thought back. “I was really angry when Wil shipped me to England. Not with him, just angry. I did my level best to get expelled again. It must have cost Wil a small fortune to ensure they kept me on. I joined the boxing club when I got to Oxford. I was getting into so many fights anyway, I thought I may as well.”

  “Yeah, but that sorted you out.”

  “Boxing taught me to control my temper a bit, I suppose, but I don’t think I stopped being angry until I started painting. Even so, I haven’t exactly been a bastion of respectability since.”

  “No… there is that, at least.”

  20

  ON THE SCENT

  (By L.W. LOWER)

  The N.S.W. Police Association wants different uniforms of lighter material, open at the neck, with a collar and tie. They also want black buttons and badges. They’ll be wanting feathers next. I would most certainly refuse to be arrested by a constable in a bow tie. And the possibility of being bailed up by a constable with a water-pistol full of eau de Cologne is not so remote as it seems.

  “What do you mean by beaning that poor old gentleman with a bottle! You ought to be ashamed of yourself. I’ve a good mind to slap your face, you cad!”

  “Oh, constable! How could you use such language to an old Goulburnian!”

  “Were you at Goulburn? What year?”

  “Last year. I matriculated in 1936, and have just completed a refresher course in the gaol bakery at Long Bay.”

  “Hmmm. Have you no respect for the old gaol tie?”

  “I’m sorry, constable.”

  “Well, I don’t want to get my new uniform creased, so I’ll let you off this time. Don’t do it again. Is my tie on straight?”

  “I think it needs adjusting, just slightly. Allow me.”

  “Thank you. Now you go and apologise to the old gentleman. He seems to be conscious now.”

  There’s no doubt about it. Clothes do make a difference.

  The Daily News, 1939

  Work assignments in the penitentiary bakery were much sought after and usually reserved for those who co-operated particularly with the police. It was here that Rowland Sinclair and Elias Isaacs, who was otherwise known as “Milton”, were sent. True to his word, Colin Delaney was doing what he could. Of course, they were not, at this stage, permitted to touch the bread and were put to work unloading sacks of flour and scrubbing bench tops.

  “If Mary Brown could see you now,” Milton grinned. It was obvious that Rowland had not even considered mopping a floor before. Indeed, he might never have actually witnessed the act. Such things were done invisibly in suburbs like Woollahra.

  “Squeeze the mop out a bit first, otherwise you’re just going to make mud, mate.”

  The baker’s oven at Long Bay turned out enough loaves to feed the entire prison population on a normal day. This day, being Christmas Eve, it was twice as busy, due to the fact there would be no baking on Christmas Day itself. The comforting aroma of freshly baked bread would have been tempting to any man, but the bakery was manned by criminals. Guards watched to ensure the bakery workers did not help themselves to extra rations. Even so, the occasional inmate would return to his cell plumper for the secretion of buns smuggled out in his clothing to stock the prison’s thriving black market.

  Rowland observed, intrigued as always by the stories etched on the faces around him in hard lines and worn shadows, eyes wide and uneasy or squinted with rat-cunning. He could already identify the first-time offenders, and even distinguish between those who were simply making their prison debut, and those who’d actually offended for the first time. Almost unconsciously he reached for the notebook hidden inside his shirt.

  “Oi! What are you doing?” A guard approached. Rowland pulled his hand away, wordlessly berating his own recklessness. Whilst Delaney had arranged for him to have the notebook back he had been warned to let no one, guard or inmate, see it, lest his drawings incite some kind of riot in the community of men.

  “What in the name of God are you doing, Sinclair?” the guard demanded. “You’re supposed to mop the floor not create a bloody swamp!”

  “Fair go!” Milton protested. “That mop is faulty.”

  “Shut your trap, Isaacs, or I’ll shut it for you! Sinclair, you can come with me. Isaacs, you clean up whatever the hell he thought he was doing here.”

  Relieved that his notebook had not been discovered, Rowland allowed the guard to escort him out of the bakery. Who knew that surrounded by murderers and thieves, incompetent mopping would be such a cause for concern?

  The guard handcuffed Rowland before taking him up to the entrance block. “Relax, Sinclair,” he said, grinning. “We’re not gonna hang you just yet. You have visitors.”

  Rowland was taken to a secure room into which his brother and his lawyers had been previously directed.

  “Hello Wil,” he said as he waited for the cuffs to be removed.

  The guard left to take up his position outside the door. Wilfred shook Rowland’s hand, noting the new bruise left on his brother’s jaw. “You look like hell, Rowly.”

  Rowland glanced down at his prison uniform. “It is a smidgeon casual. Still, I could get used to not wearing a tie.”

  “Don’t.” Wilfred replied, unamused. “We’ll have you out of here soon enough.” He pointed at the bruise. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, I’m well.”

  Wilfred introduced the four gentlemen from Kent, Beswick’s Sydney office.

  “My colleagues and I are going to step out for a few minutes, Mr. Sinclair,” Matthew Beswick announced, once the handshaking had been seen to. “I believe your brother would like a private word.”

  “Just tap on the door when you’re ready for us,” he said to Wilfred as they l
eft to join the guard in a vigil outside the room.

  Wilfred waited until Rowland was seated. “Rowly, your Miss Higgins came to see me.”

  “How is she?” Rowland asked, smiling at the thought of her.

  “Impertinent,” Wilfred replied, “but in this instance I am rather glad of her tendency to speak out of turn. She informs me that you believe I killed our father.”

  Rowland closed his eyes. He should have known Edna would take matters into her own hands. “She won’t go to the authorities, Wil.”

  Wilfred rolled his eyes, exasperated. “Of course she will. Your band of hopeless, unemployed Communist malingerers will do whatever it takes to save you, we both know that. That long-haired layabout got himself arrested just so he could accompany you here!”

  “Look Wil, I’ll—”

  “Rowly, I didn’t shoot Father.”

  “What?”

  “I didn’t kill him. And it’s only knowing that you believed I did that has made me realise that you didn’t.”

  “You thought I killed Father?”

  Wilfred sighed. “When I heard the gunshot, I went immediately to the study and found Father. I looked up and saw you in the doorway. You didn’t say anything, you just backed away. I thought you’d finally had enough and…”

  Rowland dropped his face into his hands and groaned. “My God, Wil, all these years, I thought you’d killed him. You said you were sorry.”

  “I thought I’d driven you to it.”

  “You? Why?”

  Wilfred hesitated. He lit a cigarette. “Do you remember when I collected you from the siding that day? You asked me to help you. To intercede with Father on your behalf.”

  “Did I? I don’t remember.”

  “I do. I was busy… that fellow Menzies was calling in to… Well, it doesn’t matter now.” Wilfred drew on his cigarette. “You asked me for help and I told you it was time you grew up and started accepting the consequences of your actions.”

  Rowland wasn’t quite sure what to say. He vaguely remembered panicking as they neared Oaklea. He may have asked his brother for help.

  “Rowly, I didn’t know it had gotten that bad. I thought Father would probably give you a clip around the ear but I had no idea that he’d have you flogged like that—” Wilfred stubbed the cigarette out in an ashtray. “I knew I’d let you down. I thought I’d forced you to kill Father out of desperation and I’ve always wondered whether that’s why we’ve never seemed able to get along.”

  Rowland dragged his hands through his hair, trying to absorb how enormously wrong they’d got it. “Wil, until a minute ago, I thought you’d killed Father to protect me. I was nothing but grateful.” He smiled. “We don’t always get along because you can be a pompous, insufferable git!”

  Wilfred glared at him. “For pity’s sake, Rowly, why did you think I shipped you to England before the funeral meats were cold, if it wasn’t—”

  “I expected you were sending me away because you didn’t trust me not to say anything about your killing Father. I was a trifle put out about that, to be honest.”

  “Thirteen years and you’ve never said anything!”

  “Neither have you. I assumed we had an understanding.”

  Wilfred cursed. “How are we going to explain this to Kent, Beswick without sounding like complete bloody fools?”

  If the gentlemen of Kent, Beswick and Associates thought any less of their clients, they were polite enough not to mention it. In fact they responded with such comforting mumblings as “perfectly understandable” and “a difficult time after all”. For the first time since Henry Sinclair died, his sons gave complete accounts of what they’d seen and done that evening up until they’d discovered his body.

  Matthew Beswick, KC, stroked his beard thoughtfully. “We may need to consider, gentlemen, who else had cause to murder Henry Sinclair.”

  His associates murmured in agreement.

  “You see, as elucidating as these revelations have been, they do nothing to mitigate your motives or opportunity to commit the murder. Nor do they provide you with any sort of alibi. Our best course of action may be to present the court with an alternative theory of the crime.”

  Rowland’s brow rose. “Are you suggesting that we run our own investigation?”

  “Now that neither of you gentlemen need fear incriminating the other, that may indeed be advisable.”

  Wilfred nodded curtly. “We shall look into it, Mr. Beswick, as soon as we get Rowly out of this godforsaken place.”

  Clearly frustrated, Wilfred gave Rowland the news that Delaney had heralded.

  “I’m afraid that even with Sir Adrian’s help, we are not going to be able to get you before a bail hearing any earlier than Boxing Day, Rowly.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Wil,” Rowland replied, grimacing nevertheless. “Aside from the uniform, it’s not unlike boarding school.”

  Wilfred and the learned gentlemen of Kent, Beswick prepared to leave.

  Rowland shook his brother’s hand. “Merry Christmas, Wil. Give my love to Kate and the boys.”

  “Merry Christmas, Rowly. Keep your head down.”

  The guard had only just placed Rowland in handcuffs once again when another came in to say, somewhat irritably, that he had another visitor. “Someone’s looking out for you, Sinclair. Your sister and her husband are here.”

  “My sister?”

  Edna and Clyde were escorted in. The sculptress embraced Rowland and exclaimed, in an inflection that sounded uncannily like Kate’s, that Mummy was very worried about him.

  Rowland started to laugh.

  Edna hugged him again and pretended to sob into his shoulder. “How can you be so terribly callous, Rowly?” she lamented. “Stop laughing!” she added quietly. “They only let family visit.”

  Rowland sobered, trying to look appropriately contrite until the guard, satisfied that Edna was in fact the prisoner’s sister, closed the door.

  Then Clyde grasped Rowland’s hand warmly. He took in the prison uniform. “Never thought I’d see this day, Rowly. How are you? How’s Milt?”

  “He’s well. Claims to be composing the Ballad of Reading Gaol.” Rowland told them of his conversation with Wilfred—the revelations of omission.

  Clyde laughed. Edna was cross.

  “You spent thirteen years covering up for one another because you were too polite to talk about it!” she said hotly.

  Rowland shifted uncomfortably. Put that way it was a little embarrassing. He looked sheepishly at the sculptress. “If it wasn’t for my impertinent sister we’d probably still be doing so.”

  “Impertinent? Did Wilfred call me impertinent?” she demanded. “Well that’s not polite at all!”

  “So what now, Rowly?” Clyde asked, grinning. He was happy for his friend. While Rowland believed Wilfred was guilty, his hands were tied somewhat for fear of implicating his brother. Now they could do something.

  “We’ll have a look into who else might have killed my father and Hayden. I’m sure they both had any number of enemies.”

  “How long do you think they’ll keep you here?”

  “Not long. I’ll be bailed on Boxing Day, I hope. Colin will drop the charges against Milt and we’ll be home.”

  “Will you be all right, Rowly?” Edna touched the bruise on his cheek, frowning. Milton knew how to move in the most brutal places, but, despite everything Rowland had been through, there was something naive about him.

  Rowland grabbed her hand from his face and kissed it. “Don’t be silly. If anyone comes near me, Milt recites poetry at them. I’m probably the safest man in here!”

  “And what is this, Sinclair?” Too short to be accepted into the police force, Guard Sergeant Withers had been at Long Bay since the penitentiary opened. He had seen all kinds of men come through its gates, some plagued by bad luck, others bad character. He was as yet unsure into which category Rowland Sinclair fell. Withers held the notebook up under Rowland’s nose.

  Rowland hesit
ated. The guards had searched him after Clyde and Edna left, in case his sister had passed him some sort of contraband. In the process they’d discovered his notebook. Apparently, only long-term inmates were permitted to have writing materials. Of course, he couldn’t admit that Delaney had given the notebook back to him, nor that he’d smuggled it into Long Bay. “It’s just a sketchbook, Mr. Withers. My sister thought it might help me pass the time.”

  “Did she indeed?” Withers flipped through the pages. Rowland’s sketches were both detailed and accurate enough to make the drawings of Edna recognisable to anyone who’d met her. Withers had met her. Rowland Sinclair’s beautiful sister had caught the attention of all the guards.

  The guard sergeant looked at Rowland contemptuously. “What kind of man looks at, let alone draws, his sister like this? Are you a pervert, Sinclair?”

  Rowland cursed silently. There wasn’t a lot he could say really. It did seem an odd way to draw one’s sister.

  “I’m onto you, Sinclair. You’re not the first bloke to try and sneak his tart in here on some trumped up yarn.”

  Rowland bristled. “You may want to be careful, Mr. Withers.”

  The sergeant pushed his truncheon up under Rowland’s chin. “I’m sorely tempted to close the door and teach you something about the rules right now.”

  Rowland looked down to meet the guard’s eye. His right brow arched scornfully.

  Withers swung and caught him in the ribs. The blow would not ordinarily have felled Rowland, but for its landing on the incompletely healed injuries he’d sustained in the fire. He crumpled, gasping. The guard seemed alarmed by the effects of what he’d thought a tap, and perhaps it was that which stayed his hand.

  “You’d better hope you make bail, Sinclair!” Withers snarled. He lowered the truncheon and instructed two junior guards to return Rowland to his cell. The notebook he kept.

  21

  CHRISTMAS CLEANING

  Most housewives like to have a special time of house cleaning and renovating prior to the Christmas season, and it gives one a feeling of quiet contentment to know that walls, if they have not been washed, have, at any rate been well brushed, cupboards have been done out and bait laid for destructive moths and silver fish, pictures have been polished, and fresh curtains adorn gleaming windows.