The Portrait of Molly Dean

by Katherine Kovacic

  ‘What did you do?’ Tom is staring at his father and shaking, but whether with shock or rage, I don’t know. ‘What did you do?’

  But all he gets in reply is the harsh, increasingly wet sound of Donald Raeburn’s breathing.

  It’s time for us to go, but there’s just one more thing. I nod at John. ‘You wanted Molly’s portrait, well take a good look. I don’t know whether you paid Adam Graham or whether you killed her yourself and he was just the idiot who ended up in the middle of everything, but I know what Molly uncovered, and that she was terrified of you.’

  John has pulled the blanket from Molly’s portrait and now he thrusts it forward into Donald Raeburn’s face. ‘Look at her face.’ John’s voice is icy. ‘Do you remember how badly she was beaten? The stocking tied so tightly around her neck? It’s been nearly seventy years but we all know, one way or another, you killed her.’

  I put a hand on John’s shoulder and gently push him backwards, away from the chair, away from the heat, toward the door. We need to leave.

  ‘They’re right aren’t they? You killed that girl.’ Tom’s pallor is gone, replaced by a deep flush that extends up from his neck and across his entire face.

  I start turning toward him, but suddenly Donald Raeburn lurches up from his chair and grabs my bad wrist. His strength is frightening and I’m almost blinded by the pain as he increases the pressure.

  ‘Bitch,’ he snarls.

  ‘Alex!’ John yells.

  Somehow I grab Raeburn’s little finger and bend it back, forcing him to let go. He falls to the floor and I quickly back away.

  ‘Thomas, get me up.’ Donald Raeburn extends a hand to his son.

  Tom shakes his head slowly. He is rooted to the spot, eyes wide. When Donald reaches toward him again, he flinches and recoils.

  John has the door open and hustles me out into the hall where Hogarth stands, alert. His ears relax visibly when he sees me, but as John and I step past and head for the front door, Hogarth scents the air exuding from the sitting room and a low, primal growl rises from deep in his chest.

  ‘Let’s go, Hogarth,’ I say, and with a last look over his shoulder, Hogarth falls in behind us.

  ‘Thomas!’ Donald is yelling from the sitting room. ‘Thomas!’

  We pass through the front door and I can still hear Raeburn senior shouting as John slams it behind us.

  21 November 1930

  She clunked the phone’s earpiece down and pushed her way out of the red booth. Fighting back tears, Molly stumbled from St Kilda Station into Fitzroy Street. Now, after midnight, only a few hardy souls shared the night.

  ‘Sleep on it! Think about it carefully!’ Indignation gave way to frustrated muttering as Molly rounded the corner into Grey Street. The last tram was just rattling past the St Kilda Coffee Palace, too far away to catch now.

  Molly let the tears come and they flowed unchecked as she slowly began to trudge in the tram’s wake. The books in her bag seemed suddenly to be made of lead, dragging her down, keeping her back. She was not usually given to crying, but the disappointments of recent days were somehow magnified when played out against the backdrop of life in her mother’s house. At Colin’s home, among the artists, dancers, musicians and ever-changing cast of Melbourne’s creative set, anything seemed possible. No more Opportunity School, only opportunities for her: journalism, poetry, one day a novel.

  Molly turned into Barkly Street, the shop lights beginning to fade behind her. Pulling out her handkerchief, she mopped her face dry. Tears over. She needed a new plan. Tugging off her favourite red beret, Molly let the night breeze wash over her. As she moved into the residential streets, the commercial odours of dust and engine oil were gradually replaced by a rich tapestry of night blossom, clipped lawn and the occasional hint of eucalyptus.

  She sighed loudly, the sound attracting the attention of a couple of men, clearly on their way home from a late drink in one of St Kilda’s less salubrious establishments. Molly flicked her eyes in their direction, assessed and dismissed them.

  Crossing the intersection into Mitford Street, Molly felt her resolve hardening and in response her pace quickened, making her seem like a stop-motion animation as she moved between the light puddled around the street lamps. She rounded the corner into Dickens Street.

  ‘Not bloody likely!’ She laughed. Pygmalion ’s notorious line was the perfect response to every plan her mother had for her. No more. This time she would go and not look back. If Eliza Doolittle could do it, Molly Dean could do it, and she didn’t need anyone to tell her how.

  A sudden screech made her snap her head to the right. A man, sharply outlined by the light behind him, was framed in a first-floor window. His arms, raised as if in surrender, still grasped the edge of the pane he had thrown open. Their eyes met, and Molly was preparing a pithy rebuff, when his gaze suddenly shifted down the street and he withdrew from sight.

  Primed now, Molly half hoped her mother would be lying in wait as she often was. Although it may be better to hold off until morning and present her plan rationally, part of her hungered for confrontation. It didn’t really matter. Despite the late hour, Molly knew tonight there would be no sleep as she mapped out the next stage of her life, the first step to truly greater things.

  She turned without thinking into Addison Street, a landscape obscured by night, but with the path familiar to her feet.

  A whisper of sound behind her, the brush of fabric on fabric, a sudden rush of air, excruciating pain as something cracked into her head. Molly fell against a fence, then to the path, bag still over her arm. She clawed the ground, opened her mouth to scream, but could barely suck in air.

  Another blow, head again, metal on bone. Molly stopped moving.

  A hulking shape loomed, grabbed her ankles and dragged her from Addison Street into a cobbled lane, a Stygian red river of blood marking their path. A shoe fell in the mouth of the laneway, her bag came adrift, books tumbled, papers fluttered. In the darkness of the lane, he began tearing at her clothes – petticoat first, then the stocking, knickers.

  Molly groaned, gasped. Her hand fluttered weakly, seeming to move toward her head before falling back to the cobbles.

  She didn’t feel the stocking going around her throat, was barely aware as it became tight, tighter. Her dress and chemise were pushed up, exposing Molly’s breasts, and the petticoat was tied around one arm, but Molly’s conscious mind had already abandoned her pain-racked body. A barely audible gurgle emanated from deep in her throat.

  This seemed to enrage her attacker. The response was swift and brutal. The tyre iron swung again and again.

  Molly was still now, silent. Crouched over her, breathing heavily but trying to keep quiet, her attacker shifted the tyre iron to his other hand. He was not done yet. Minutes passed, with only the sound of his heavy breathing disturbing the night.

  Somewhere, the harsh sound of a man drawing hard on the last of a cigarette. How close? Sounds travel differently at night.

  The assailant stood. A moment’s hesitation, a last, lingering look at Mary Winifred Dean. A backward step and the shadows embraced him. He had returned to the darkness and Molly was alone.

  There was a moment when Elwood, or maybe all of Melbourne, held its breath. Then Molly began to groan.

  Each tortured breath, each infinitesimally small rise and fall of her broken chest, produced a low lament of pain and anguish. It was the primal sound of the mortally wounded.

  In the front bedroom of number 5 Addison Street, Beatrice Owen felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. Never one to quail, she twitched the curtain and pressed her face to the window, eyes wide and straining against the dark. A shadow flicked past the fence.

  ‘Fred! Fred!’

  ‘Bea? Wassup?’ Her brother’s voice was thick with sleep.

  ‘Someone’s out there! I saw some
one!’

  ‘Go back to sleep.’ Even from across the hall, she heard the creak of the mattress springs as he settled back in. ‘Yer dreamin’, Bea.’

  Doubting but wanting the reassurance, Beatrice turned toward her bed, but a soft whimper had her spinning into the hall and at her brother’s door.

  ‘There’s something hurt out there. Get up! I’m not going out by myself.’

  ‘I swear, Bea.’ Fred pulled on his dressing gown. ‘I’m working in the morning.’ Slid his feet into his shoes. ‘You gotta stop reading those penny dreadfuls!’

  He stomped down the hall, flung open the door and stood, scenting the air like a bloodhound. Beatrice pushed past him and stepped down the path. At the gate, she froze.

  ‘Holy heck, Fred!’ He was by her side in an instant.

  ‘Strewth!’

  Just beyond the pickets lay a woman’s things – hat, bag, shoe – and a jumble of papers, as though their owner had suddenly been plucked from the world, too quickly to gather her possessions.

  Wrenching the gate open, Fred had only taken two steps when his brain linked the input from nose and eyes. The sharp ferrous tang he’d first detected from the verandah was emanating from the viscous trail that led into the lane.

  ‘Go inside, Bea. I’ve got to phone the coppers.’ His voice was harsh with fear.

  1999

  It’s a few days after our visit with Donald Raeburn, and Hogarth and I are standing just inside the North Road entrance to Brighton General Cemetery. John has taken his car to collect Daphne from Hillview, and I’m expecting them to join us any minute. I’ve just finished updating Mum about Molly’s story, and I drop my mobile back into my bag. There’s a gentle breeze blowing, enough to make the few nearby trees whisper softly to one another, but not so much that I need a coat. My face is turned to the sun, eyes closed behind my sunglasses. I have a bunch of carnations tucked under my arm and Hogarth is leaning against my leg, happy to be out and about.

  ‘We made it.’ It’s John.

  I open my eyes. He and Daphne are coming through the gate at a steady pace. John is matching his stride to Daphne and her walker, and judging by their relatively jaunty approach she’s having a good day. Hogarth steps forward to meet them, tail waving in a gentlemanly fashion.

  ‘When you said you didn’t want us all squashed into one car, I didn’t quite appreciate your point.’ Daphne strokes Hogarth’s head and gives his ear a rub. ‘But now it makes perfect sense.’

  ‘Good to see you, Daphne.’ I give her a peck on the cheek. ‘I’m glad you could come.’

  ‘It’s a wonderful idea and I wouldn’t miss it. Dad would have wanted me to come too.’

  ‘It’s not far and I have a map. Shall we go?’

  We start down the road into the cemetery. I suppose we could have driven closer, but this feels right, a more mindful approach. It’s a weekday morning so the place is quiet except for a few birds and the background susurration of cars on the roads outside the cemetery walls.

  ‘Have you heard anything more from the Raeburns?’ John thought, once he’d had a chance to regroup, Donald Raeburn would come out guns blazing.

  ‘Not a thing. I never saw who attacked me, so I can’t prove it was Tom’s son, and as for Tom, well … I don’t know whether he really has the guts to stand up to his father, but I’d like to think it’s possible. And there did seem to be a hint of backbone in there.’

  ‘Yeah.’ John shrugs. ‘But family and a lifetime of habits are powerful things.’

  ‘I don’t care. If Tom can live with that, I really don’t care. We achieved something though. Donald Raeburn knows the past has caught up with him. It would be great if he could be called to account, but there’s not much we can do about that. Besides, by the sound of him, he’ll pop his clogs fairly soon.’

  ‘I hope it hurts when he does.’ Daphne smacks the handle of her walker for emphasis.

  John and I both stop and stare at her.

  ‘What? Just because I’m old doesn’t mean I’m soft. Anyhow, that seems to be the way of it. From what I’ve seen at Hillview, the nasty ones always seem to rot on the inside or have a massive, painful brain bleed, something like that.’

  ‘Gee, it’s all sweetness and light in retirement living, isn’t it?’ John looks at Daphne admiringly. ‘Can I paint your portrait sometime? I want to catch the steel in your eyes.’

  Daphne gives him a playful swat on the arm and we start walking again.

  ‘I wish Raeburn would give us a deathbed confession,’ I say. ‘I’d really like to know exactly what the story was with Adam Graham.’

  John snorts.

  ‘I still think Adam was involved,’ Daphne replies. ‘All that evidence, and the strange way he and Ethel Dean behaved about Molly. He had to have been there.’

  ‘Your dad seemed fairly certain it was Graham who actually killed her, but had no idea about Raeburn’s connection to Molly. We’re never going to know for sure though.’

  ‘What about those other girls who were attacked at about the same time? Surely that wasn’t just coincidence?’ Daphne asks.

  ‘I don’t know, but from what you remembered and the other little bits I could find out, I think that was someone else. The girls were usually grabbed around the neck, but not throttled, and a couple of them were hit with a blunt instrument, but not seriously bashed. And there were a few bags stolen. I suspect Molly’s killer was trying to make her attack look like it fitted with the others.’ I shrug. It’s as good as I can get. ‘And those attacks seem to have stopped after Molly’s death. I can only assume the man responsible for those got scared he’d be blamed for Molly if he tried it again.’

  There’s silence for a moment, except for the crunch of gravel under shoes and wheels.

  ‘What are you going to do with the notes?’ John asks.

  ‘Get them published. I thought of writing something myself, trying to resurrect my academic career, but then I realised that would be doing Molly a disservice. Maybe once Raeburn senior is dead I’ll pass the whole thing on to a newspaper and let them run with it.’ I stop and look at my map. ‘Down here.’

  We peel off the main road and start making our way between the rows of graves. ‘This is really quite a fitting spot,’ I say. ‘There are lots of artists here: Fred McCubbin, Septimus Power, Emanuel Phillips Fox … Not to mention writers like Adam Lindsay Gordon and Marion Miller.’

  The path is narrow and a bit uneven so we move slowly. I read a few headstones as we pass by and feel an echoing pang of sorrow for all these dearly beloveds and sadly misseds, most of whom have now been joined by those who wrote their epitaphs. Then, without fanfare, we are there in front of a sad little plot edged in bluestone and granite, like a medieval fortification in miniature. There is no headstone, just a small weathered plaque.

  John helps Daphne to reposition her walker so she can sit down, then he and I carefully pull out the weeds that have taken hold in places across the dry earth. It doesn’t take long before the plot is clear, but I realise we have no vase for the flowers. I’d kind of assumed there would be more here, that what followed Molly’s dramatic death would be bigger and more, well, monumental.

  Daphne reaches into her cavernous bag and pulls out a large plastic tumbler, the sort of drink container they give to the sick and infirm. ‘I brought it just in case. Hillview won’t miss it.’

  I take the cup and leave John and Daphne while I look for a tap. Hogarth follows me a little way then breaks off to snuffle around, tail in the air. When I return, slopping water over my shoes, the two of them are silent. John’s hand is on Daphne’s shoulder and her hand sits on his. Unwrapping the flowers, I try to arrange them, but the cup isn’t really designed for that, and I have to let them be. I press the makeshift vase into the crumbly soil, twisting it around a few times to bed it in and help it counter th
e height of the flowers. Then I step back to Daphne’s other side.

  ‘Where’s Molly’s portrait?’ Daphne is looking up at me, squinting a little against the sun.

  ‘Molly is now installed above the mantelpiece in my living room, and that’s where she’s going to stay.’

  ‘You’re not going to sell her?’

  ‘Not for a long time, if ever. I know so much more about Molly now, and she deserves to be remembered for who she was, not how she died. It doesn’t seem right to parade her around or turn a profit. Especially when the story is revived.’

  ‘What? Alex “what’s it worth” Clayton is hanging on to a painting for sentimental reasons? That’s a first.’ John stares at me.

  I shrug and push my sunglasses more firmly onto my face.

  ‘But after the past couple of weeks, well …’ John turns back to Molly’s grave as he speaks. ‘I agree, Molly deserves some peace.’

  We stay like that for a while, not speaking, until Hogarth trots up and breaks the spell.

  ‘Come on then,’ I say, as John and I help Daphne up and set her walker on the path. ‘Why don’t you come back to my place and visit Molly?’

  I turn toward the gate, and we set off. Around us angels weep tears of stone, but Hogarth is bounding ahead in the sunshine.

  Author’s Notes

  The events in this novel are based on the 1930 murder of Mary ‘Molly’ Winifred Dean. I have imagined her conversations and day-to-day activities based on what is known of her life and aspirations. While Alex Clayton and her contemporaries are all entirely fictitious, most of Molly’s close associates were real people. The exceptions are Donald Raeburn and those people that are part of his story. Donald Raeburn was created solely to provide a sense of closure to Molly’s murder and is entirely my own creation. The way in which Adam Graham’s £1000 bail was immediately paid by a mysterious benefactor and the surprising way the whole case suddenly evaporated suggested powerful forces at work, and I envisaged Raeburn as the holder of that power.